Confederation Life Building

The Confederation Life Building, a seven-floor Romanesque Revival office building, is a historic structure in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Completed in 1892, it was designated a historic property by the City of Toronto under the Ontario Heritage Act on November 26, 1975.[1][2]

Confederation Life Building
The Confederation Life Building in 2008.
Location	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Coordinates	43.652014°N 79.378484°W
Built	1892
Ontario Heritage Act
Designated	November 26, 1975
Designated by	Toronto City Council

It is located at 2–14 Richmond Street East on the north side of Richmond Street East, extending from Yonge Street to Victoria Street.

The building was once home to insurer Confederation Life, which launched a competition for designs for its new headquarters in May 1889.[3] The winning entry came from architects Wilm Knox and John Elliot, whose firm Knox, Elliot and Jarvis had only been operating for a few years when it won design rights for the building.[1][4][5]

A fire gutted the top floor of the building and destroyed the roof in June 1981,[6] but the structure survived and was restored for new tenants occupying the primary address at 20 Richmond Street East, with secondary addresses at 157 Yonge and 106 Victoria.

Notes

1. "Confederation Life Building". Ontario Heritage Trust. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
2. Toronto Bylaw 533-75, Schedule B (November 26, 1975).
3. Osbaldeston 2011, p. 93.
4. Arthur & Otto 1986, p. 207.
5. Osbaldeston 2011, p. 98.
6. Osbaldeston 2011, p. 100.

Sources

• Arthur, Eric Ross; Otto, Stephen A. (1986). Toronto: No Mean City (3rd ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-6587-2. OCLC 25914968.
• Osbaldeston, Mark (October 3, 2011). Unbuilt Toronto 2: More of the City That Might Have Been. Toronto: Dundurn. ISBN 978-1-4597-0093-2.

External links

• Confederation Life Building at the Ontario Heritage Trust