The King City Public Library and Seniors Centre has been honored with a national award for its architectural excellence. Designed by Kongats Architects, the building was one of 12 recipients of this year’s Governor General’s Medals in Architecture.
These awards celebrate outstanding achievements in recently completed projects by Canadian architects. Established by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, the program enhances the discipline and practice of architecture while raising public awareness of its cultural significance in Canadian society. The awards are administered jointly with the Canada Council for the Arts, which oversees the adjudication process.
Construction of the 21,000-square-foot (1,951-square-metre) building located at 1970 King Road began in 2018. This bright, modern facility, nestled in the hillside across from King City Secondary School, held its grand opening on November 8, 2021.
In their selection, the jury remarked: "The King City Library and Seniors Centre is a multigenerational community hub, a place to meet, share stories, knowledge, and information consistent with the evolving service expectations of a 21st-century audience. The spatial configuration of the library resembles an open hand. The branching fingers of the hand set a formal logic by alternating between intimate, wood-lined study rooms and glazed, light-filled reading/activity rooms that offer views of the surrounding landscape. The simple, unencumbered materiality of the building—stone, wood, and glass—defines the building spatially as complementary mass and void."
The win was also captured in a Globe and Mail article that you can read here.
For more information on King Township’s Public Library, visit kinglibrary.ca.
