2025 Heritage Toronto Awards winners announced
For the 2025 edition of the Heritage Toronto Awards, a total of six winners were named from 60 nominees in three categories: Book, Public History, and Built Heritage.
Five of the categories were independently judged by a jury of experts, with the sixth category, the People’s Choice Award, chosen by Heritage Toronto donors and Awards ticket holders.
The 2025 Special Achievement Award was presented to architect and advocate, Michael McClelland.
McClelland has been a key voice in shaping Toronto’s built heritage, expanding past definitions that spotlight monuments or landmarks, to focus on cultural landscapes that reflect histories and community identities. His work includes major projects such as the restoration of the Don Jail and the Broadview Hotel, as well as the revitalization of the Distillery District. As a writer and editor, McClelland’s editorial contributions include the award-winning Concrete Toronto: A Guidebook to Concrete Architecture from the Fifties to the Seventies (2007), and The Ward Uncovered: The Archaeology of Everyday Life (2018).
2 Queen Street West
Heritage Continuity & Innovation
Property Owner: Cadillac Fairview
Architects: Zeidler Architecture and ERA Architects
Project Date of Completion: September 2024
The revitalization of 2 Queen Street West celebrates Toronto’s architectural past while charting the way for the future. Designed by Zeidler Architecture and ERA Architects, the project blends heritage restoration with modern architecture. The original 1896 structure, known as the Philip Jamieson Building, had undergone various alterations throughout its lifetime, jeopardizing its character and structural integrity. The restoration of the original four-storey structure, along with the three-storey addition, creates a landmark that enhances the streetscape at the intersection of Yonge and Queen Streets.
FitzGerald Building Revitalization at the University of Toronto
Heritage Renewal for Academic Innovation
Property Owner: University of Toronto
Project Date of Completion: December 2024
Heritage Architect: Jordan Molnar, ERA Architects Inc.
The University of Toronto’s FitzGerald Building underwent a comprehensive adaptive reuse, transforming the 1927 Georgian Revival-style heritage structure. The project fully renovated all five above-grade and two below-grade levels, along with exterior enhancements to improve building efficiency and usability.
Deer Park Church Rehabilitation
Heritage Revival Through Adaptive Reuse
Property Owner: The Imperial
Project Date of Completion: November 2024
Architect: Diamond Schmitt
Heritage Architect: Annie Pelletier, ERA Architects Inc.
Landscape Architect: Janet Rosenberg & Studio
The Deer Park Presbyterian Church building was designed by Sharp and Brown Architects and completed in 1912, with later additions on the south in 1931 and on the east in 1961. The congregation vacated and deconsecrated the church in 2008, and a redevelopment process was initiated in 2010 which was approved in 2015, and the building was partially demolished in 2017 to make way for a residential development to the south which was completed in 2022. The conservation work and landscape were completed in 2024, and the adaptive reuse for a restaurant and event space opened earlier this year.
Let’s Build a Collective Memory of Chinatown
Project Lead: Linda Zhang
Date of Release: September 6, 2024
“Let’s Build a Collective Memory of Chinatown” is a community co-design, memory, and storytelling project that took place in Toronto and Cambridge from Fall 2024 to Spring 2025. This project brought more than 300 Chinatown community members across over four generations to explore how shared memory and imagination can safeguard Chinatown’s heritage and build community.
He Hijacked My Brain
Authors: Derek Emerson, Stephen Perry, Fran Grasso, Shawn Chirrey, Simon Harvey, and Gary Topp
Publisher: UXB Press
He Hijacked My Brain: Gary Topp’s Toronto is a tribute to Toronto’s cultural evolution through the lens of one of its most influential figures, and chronicles the life and work of concert promoter, film curator, and counterculture pioneer Gary Topp.
Project Lead: Carly Wolowich
Date of Release: May 11, 2024
“New Light” was an exhibition focused on the life and work of the late, Scarborough-based artist and writer Doris McCarthy (1910–2010). It was presented at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, the professional, contemporary art gallery located on the University of Toronto Scarborough campus, from May – July 2024.
The post 2025 Heritage Toronto Awards winners announced appeared first on Canadian Architect.