| Year |
Details |
|
| 1911 |
Toronto City Council votes to provide $60,000 (plus $5,000 for books) to the Toronto Public Library Board for a new branch library in the Dovercourt district. A 150- by 100-foot (46- by 30- metre) site at the southwest corner of Bloor Street and Gladstone Avenue is acquired. Plans by Toronto architects Alfred H. Chapman & Robert B. McGiffin are approved, 12 December. They include a "unique innovation": a summer reading garden between the two wings of the ground floor and open to the south. |
| 1912 |
Construction starts, 30 April. Cornerstone is laid on 16 October. |
| 1913 |
Dovercourt Branch officially opened 23 October. Chapman & McGiffin Architects. First TPL branch wholly financed by the City of Toronto. |
| 1916 |
Ontario’s Provincial Library Training School is held for a month in the basement lecture room; a two-month session is provided there in September 1917. |
| 1917 |
Children’s room is moved to larger quarters in the former lecture room in the basement, opened 30 November. |
| 1938 |
Renamed Bloor and Gladstone, December. |
| 1970 |
Service for the “more aliened youth of the district” is provided at ‘The Place,’ a sub-branch project in a storefront on Bloor Street just east of the library; it is soon relocated and taken over by a community board. |
| 1975 |
Closed for renovation and expansion, 24 November. Architects: Howard V. Walker and Howard D. Chapman (son of the original architect). Limited service is provided in a storefront at 1124-6 Bloor Street West (corner of Dufferin Street) beginning 25 November. |
| 1976 |
Reopened on 7 April. |
| 1991 |
Closed for carpet replacement on 2 July. Reopened 13 July. |
| 1992 |
Closed for HVAC retrofit June 8. Reopened 5 July. |
| 1993 |
Listed on Toronto Historical Board's Inventory of Heritage Properties adopted by City Council, 22 March. |
| 2006 |
Closed for restoration, renovation, and expansion, 30 December. Project Architects: rounthwaite, dick and hadley architects inc in association with Shoalts and Zaback Architects Ltd. and ERA Architects Inc. |
| 2009 |
Reopened 23 July. Toronto Public Library first building with a green roof. Heritage plaque presented by Heritage Toronto in partnership with the Toronto Public Library commemorating the Dovercourt Branch. Toronto's Historical Plaques. Dovercourt - Bloor/Gladstone Branch history panel (PDF). |
| 2010 |
Winner of a 2010 international architecture award handed out by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies. Winner of OLA Library Building Award. Honourable mention for the 2010 William Greer Architectural Conservation & Craftsmanship Award handed out by Toronto Heritage. 2010 Gold award winner handed out by the Design Exchange. 2010 Winner of Best of Canada Award handed out by Canadian Interiors magazine. Posted online in "Special Features" & "Libraries at Night" categories of the American Libraries Architecture Showcase. |
| 2011 |
Winner of Design Excellence award handed out by the Ontario Association of Architects. |
| 2013 |
Celebrates 100 years of service to the community, September-October 2013. |
| 2014 |
Winner of Governor General's Medals in Architecture. |
