Canada Life Building
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The Canada Life Building is an historic Toronto office building. The 15 floor Beaux Arts building was built by Sprott & Rolph and stands at 87.0 m (97.8m with weather beacon).
It is located at University and Queen Street in the city's downtown. Work on the new headquarters of the Canada Life Assurance Company began in 1929 and it opened in 1931. It was the fourth building to serve as the headquarters of Canada Life, Canada's oldest and at the time largest insurance company. Previously it had been housed in offices at Bay and King.
The Beaux Arts structure was the first of a series of planned structures along University Avenue, but the Depression halted these plans. When it was completed it was one of the tallest buildings in Toronto.
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[edit] Weather beacon
The building is perhaps best known for the weather beacon atop it introduced on August 9, 1951, originally designed as a mooring tower for airships. The beacon shines red for rain, white for snow, and lights running up or down it indicate a change in temperature.
The beacon's colour-coded translations of weather information provide onlookers with "predictions at a glance". The information is updated four times daily, seven days a week, by Environment Canada's Weather Centre at Pearson International Airport.
The device uses a simple two-signal approach to illustrate the city's weather forecast. A colourful beacon light located at the top of the tower forecasts approaching weather systems, while the second signal, displayed by the lights that are affixed to the support tower, indicates variations in temperature.
The beacon was the first of its kind to appear in Canada and was built at a cost of $25,000. The top of the beacon tower stands 321 feet (98 meters) above University Avenue, and upon completion measured third only to the Royal York Hotel & the 476-foot, 34-storey tower The Canadian Bank of Commerce (the tallest building in the British Commonwealth until 1962 http://www.cibc.com/ca/inside-cibc/history/story-cibc-2.html) as the tallest building peak in Toronto.
- Updated 4 times daily
- Steady green = fair weather
- Red = cloudy skies
- White flashes = snow
- Red flashes = rain
- Lights running up = rising temperatures
- Lights running down = falling temperatures
- Steady lights = steady temperature
[edit] Tower
Canada Life Tower is an addition to the building.
It is 16 floors in height and built by Kuwabara Payne McKenna. It was completed in 2005.
[edit] Neighboring buildings
- Sun Life Building (Toronto) 1957
- Bank of Canada Building (Toronto) 1957
- Campbell House (Toronto) 1822, moved to present location 1972
