1929 - Canadian Bank of Commerce Building, Toronto, Ontario
N 43° 38.927 W 079° 22.743
17T E 630723 N 4834141
Now dwarfed by everything around it, the Canadian (Imperial) Bank of Commerce Building (25 King Street West) once dominated the Toronto skyline. For three decades, its 34-storeys and 141-metre height made it the tallest building in the Commonwealth.
Waymark Code: WMP60G
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 07/07/2015
Views: 5
In the early 20th century, new construction methods and civic pride shuffled the “tallest” title from city to city with regularity. Yet the bank tower, one of the last major buildings constructed in Toronto before the onset of the Depression, held the title from December 1930 until 1962. Almost forgotten in the tangle of bank towers, its style—described by some as Romanesque and by others as Art Deco—recalls the glamourous age of high finance.
Having become the largest Toronto-based bank by the 1920s through a series of mergers, the Bank of Commerce had outgrown its seven-storey headquarters, and began making plans in 1927 to construct a new building on the same lot at King and Jordan that the bank had occupied for forty years. Intending the new building as “a statement of confidence both in the stability of the bank and in the development of Canada,” the Bank of Commerce retained Darling and Pearson, one of Canada’s leading architectural firms, with New York firm York and Sawyer as consulting architects.
With temporary bank headquarters established in the Ogilvie Building at Bay and Wellington, construction began in June 1929.
Year of construction: 1929
Cross-listed waymark: [Web Link]
Full inscription: Not listed
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