1920 – Bankers’ Bond Building, King Street, Toronto, Canada

Constructed 1920 at 60 King Street West, demolished 1973, the coloumns were re-erected in a park at the Guild Inn, Scarborough.

“The problem of producing on a 33 foot city frontage a financial facade of a dignified and enduring character, has been solved by a worthy copy of the Ei echtheium at Athens, one of the most refined and complete of the Greek Ionic temples.

The architect, J.A. MacKenzie, of Toronto, has studiously reproduced in Indiana limestone and bronze, some of the grace and rich carvings of this Grecian prototype, the sculptured ornament in particular being excellently done. All work was executed from full size details and shaded studies of ornament. The shafts of the columns were turned and fluted at the Bedford quarries, and have a most delicate and graceful entasis from base to capital. The turned bases are enriched with a carved Guilloche member, while the Ionic capitals with their intricate volutes and honeysuckle ornament on the necking, are exceedingly rich and beautifully carved. The fine and precise fret ornament on the window sills is in perfect scale with the double sinkings of the volutes of the capitals, while Grecian egg and tongues replaces the egg and darts of the Roman orders.

The doorway, with its carved architrave and numerous rosettes, is crowned with a cyma recte moulding richly carved in Greek honeysuckles, making a rich, but dignified entrance.

The very refined cornice is entirely without brackets or medallions. The crowning number is executed in the Greek Acanthus leaf and rosette, but perhaps the most charming point of the whole design is the proportion of the entablature to the slender columns. The mass and slope of the pediment are just right for the supports, the inter-columnation and mass of the Erechtheium being closely followed. Square headed openings and a predominance of vertical lines in bronze windows harmonize perfectly with the narrow interspaces between the columns.”
Construction, April 1920

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