Canada Permanent Trust Building
Behind a restrained Bay Street façade, a bronze-and-marble banking hall that is one of Toronto’s finest Art Deco interiors.
At a glance
The Canada Permanent Trust Building rose on Bay Street in the heart of Toronto’s financial district, completed in 1930 as the headquarters of the Canada Permanent Mortgage Corporation. Its eighteen storeys combine the vertical drive of the Art Deco skyscraper with the simplified classical forms of the Style Moderne. The exterior is dignified rather than flamboyant; the drama is saved for the vaulted banking hall inside, where bronze, marble and carved ornament create one of the richest commercial interiors of interwar Toronto. Recently restored and rebranded as “The Permanent,” the building is protected under Ontario’s heritage legislation.
Key facts
- Architects: Sproatt & Rolph (Henry Sproatt), with F. Hilton Wilkes
- Completed: 1930
- Style: Art Deco / Style Moderne
- Height: 18 storeys
- Status: Heritage-designated (1975); restored from 2021, now “The Permanent”
- Address: 320 Bay Street, Toronto
History
The tower was built between 1928 and 1930 for Canada Permanent, then one of the country’s largest mortgage and trust companies. It joined the cluster of bank towers that gave Bay Street its identity as the financial spine of Toronto in the late 1920s, the brief window when Canadian institutions raced to build tall before the Depression.
Designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1975, the building was carefully restored beginning in 2021, its late-1920s façade and banking hall preserved while the upper floors were modernised. It reopened under the name “The Permanent.”
What you see
From the street the building reads as a sober, vertically grooved shaft — the Style Moderne preference for clean piers over applied ornament. The richness is concentrated at the base and, above all, inside.
The banking hall is the showpiece: a high vaulted ceiling, polished marble surfaces and bronze detailing in the geometric, stylised manner of 1930. It belongs to the great age of the temple-like bank interior, when entering to deposit money was meant to feel like entering a cathedral of commerce.
Practical information
- A commercial office building; access to the interior depends on current tenancy and events.
- The Bay Street façade can be seen at any time.
- Part of a walk through Toronto’s interwar financial district.
Getting there
Address: 320 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario. Queen station (Line 1) and King station are both a short walk away, and the building is steps from Old City Hall and the financial core.
Nearby
- Old City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square
- Commerce Court North, another Bay Street Art Deco landmark
- The Toronto financial district and Union Station
Sources
- City of Toronto Heritage Register
- Architectural Conservancy of Ontario
- Wikipedia: Canada Permanent Trust Building
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