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The architects of the Toronto Reference Library – Alfred H. Gregg,
A. Frank Wickson and Alfred Chapman - were well acquainted with designing
Carnegie library buildings in Ontario. Wickson & Gregg designed the
Brampton Carnegie Library in 1906. Alfred Chapman had apprenticed with
Beaumont Jarvis of Toronto, architect of the Carnegie libraries in Orangeville
and Lucknow, prior to attending the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and
working in New York City. Chapman later designed the Carnegie libraries
in Dundas and Barrie. He also planned Toronto Public Library’s Dovercourt
Branch, opened in 1913 at Bloor Street and Gladstone Avenue and the first
library in the city to be wholly financed by the municipality.
Architectural historian Patricia McHugh described the Toronto Reference
Library as “one of the best Second Classical Revival buildings in
Toronto, rich in sculptural stone ornament but poised and firm with graceful
large windows set deep into smooth yellow-brick walls and a gradually
stepped approach to dignify the entrance.”1
1Patricia, Patricia McHugh,
Toronto Architecture; A City Guide, 2nd ed. (Toronto: McClelland
& Stewart, 1989), 118.
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