1917 – Park School, Toronto, Canada

Between 1914 -1917 when the total enrollment of the school was 1259, the construction of the school expanded to become the largest school built in Canada. At the time, the cost to build the school was $182,000. Now known as the Nelson Mandela Park Public School.

“This is the new Park School which contains thirty-four rooms and provides accommodation for seventeen hundred pupils. It is built op a site adjoining the old school of that name on Sydenham street between Sumach and Sackville streets, and gives vastly superior accommodation for the building it replaces.

The object foremost in mind in designing the building was to provide a modernly equipped structure which would adequately and efficiently serve a thickly populated section, without attempting any elaboration which would require an unnecessary expenditure. Special care has been given to the subject of heating and ventilation, and the lighting of the classrooms which are placed on either side of wide fireproof corridors extending to eight separate entrances at both ends and the centre of the building. The structure is three stories high, two hundred and seventy-two by seventy-two feet, with a rear extension fifty-five by seventy-two feet, and the total cost of its erection was $188,000, which brings the cost to approximately $5,500 per classroom”
Construction, May 1918

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