Although most of my drives on Lakeshore Road or the Gardiner Expressway are a function of the work that I do, there is still a large pleasure component. For me, downtown Toronto and one building in particular, have always held a special attraction.

Childhood trips were always for pleasure; shopping at Eaton’s or Simpson’s, or visiting grandmother. Arrival in downtown Toronto was signaled by the Bay Street Tunnel and the Toronto Postal Delivery Building. With its eclectic mix of Art Deco and Classicism and its numerous bas-reliefs, it embodies the idea of travel, even in the curved horizontal bands of glazing. Today, after years of long neglect, the building lives on, integrated into the Air Canada Centre.

The real magnet for me was a little further north, at Bay and King Streets. Looking up through the rear window of my father’s car, I could see the Bank of Nova Scotia’s Banking Hall and office tower; twenty eight storeys high, with 513,270 square feet of space, it was the largest office building in the city and one of the most beautiful.

The Bank of Nova Scotia Building, at 44 King West had a long and eventful gestation period. It was designed originally in 1928 by John M. Lyle, a Canadian architect who championed both modern architecture and Canadian identity. Unfortunately, the stock market crash and the onset of the Second World War delayed construction for nearly two decades. By the time the respected firm Mathers and Haldenby were retained to supervise the construction of the building in accordance with its original design, architect John Lyle, structural engineers Andrew Harkness and Chas. Hertzberg and mechanical consultant Walter Armstrong had all died. Furthermore, the historic Cawthra House, which the bank building would replace, was now almost 100 years old and had attracted a large and loyal anti-demolition group of defenders.

But the bank was powerful and determined at last to get their structure off the drawing board and Lyle’s design was not without its own charms. It reflected a mixture of influences; his Beaux Arts training, his work under H.H. Richardson and McKim Mead and White; and the tiered skyscrapers of New York and Chicago (especially Saarinen’s 1922 Chicago Tribune Tower design). For the fourth-level spandrel panels, well-known Toronto sculptor Fred Winkler designed six bas-relief Greek mythological figures, carved by the Temporale brothers – Louis, Peter and Mario of Port Credit.

In the forties and fifties, Toronto was home to a number of distinguished Canadian sculptors such as Emanuel Hahn, Jacobine Jones, Frances Loring, Florence Wyle and Elizabeth Wyn Wood. Before the sixties, many major Toronto buildings incorporated the talents of these and other artists to add texture, light and shadow visual interest and identity. But the invasion of the modern movement put an end to the appreciation of craftsmanship and, because cultural motifs formed the impetus for much of this ornament, some of our country’s patriotic fervor died as well.

44 King Street has many reasons to be considered an important Ontario building. In addition to its fine sculptures, the exterior boasts some beautiful window screens clad in v-shaped stainless steel over a heavy aluminum frame and secured at each intersection by a bronze boss. The building’s mechanical design was the work of pioneer Dr. Karel Tykka. The building’s state-of-the-art (for 1950) system included automatically controlled zoned heating and cooling and abundant fresh air, filtereds and humidified to promote the general health and welfare of its occupants. Finally, the 196’ by 83’ by 35’-6” high Banking Hall is simply one of the finest rooms in the city. The travertine clad walls focus on a 29’ high by 19’ wide mural designed by Jacobine Jones and executed in Hauteville marble by the Temporale brothers.

A visitor to the Banking Hall cannot help but compare it to the larger and newer Scotia Plaza foyer, to which it is connected. The Banking Hall is grand, but retains a human scale. Its proportions and attention to detail are exceptional. In all of its elements, it epitomizes the wealth and stability of Canadian banking.

Forty-four King Street’s public space is not in the street but in the Banking Hall. As a Bay Street cornerstone, it represents an important step in Canadian architecture’s own modern movement, rapidly superseded by the glass and steel of the international modern movement. Like the Postal Building, it represents an unique phase in our architecture, by incorporating some evidence of Canadian image and identity, principally through the art and decoration that was subsequently rejected by the rush toward modernity. Let the Leafs and Raptors have the Postal Building, I’ll keep 44 King Street West.

Alexander Temporale is principal of ATA Architects Inc. and a member of the Perspectives editorial board. He is the son of one of Toronto’s best stone-carvers, and nephew of two others. In their book, Toronto: Carved in Stone (Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1984). Margaret and Merilyn McKelvey include photos of numerous Temporale brothers’ stone carving and state that they were “considered by Jacobine Jones to be the best”.