Notes:
St. Basil’s Seminary was constructed in 1950-51 to the designs of architect, Ernest Cormier. The new building was part of a centennial project by the Basilian Fathers to expand St. Michael’s College.
The Basilian Fathers originated in France in 1828 and following the appointment of Armand-Francoise-Marie de Charbonnel as Toronto’s Archbishop in 1850, they arrived at his invitation in Toronto in 1852. In 1853, the Basilians amalgamated with St. Michael's College and in 1856 relocated the college to the Clover Hill estate. In 1949, to celebrate the college centenary and support its growth and expansion, the Basilians commissioned Ernest Cormier, OC (1885-1980), the Montreal-based architect and engineer, who is regarded as one of Canada's most outstanding 20th-century architects. Cormier’s project was three-fold: to design new and separate facilities for a high school, university and seminary. The high school, St. Michael's College was located at St. Clair and Bathurst Street. St. Basil's Seminary and the new university building, Carr Hall (1950-54), were located on the St. Michael’s College campus and were designed by Cormier in partnership with Toronto architects, Brennan & Whale. Cormier's design for the seminary incorporated the historic Newman Hall Chapel (1913), designed by the architect Arthur W. Holmes who had authored the Campus Master Plan for St. Michael's College in the 1920s and, over the course of 40 years, designed several other buildings for the college.
Completed in 1951, and extended in 1959 and 1979-80, the seminary complex is an integral part of the sequence of St. Michael's College buildings constructed over 140 years on the historic Clover Hill estate as part of a Roman Catholic educational enclave which includes the world-renowned Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies and the Marshall McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology. Today, the St. Michael's College campus is distinguished by its collection of low-rise college buildings constructed in a consistent palette of buff brick, limestone and concrete, punctuated by the spires of St. Basil's Church and Carr Hall and set in a series of landscaped open-spaces interwoven with pedestrian pathways which together form a distinct cultural heritage landscape. St. Basil's Seminary is an important contributor to this evolved collection and context of St. Michael's College which forms part of the University of Toronto campus surrounding Queen's Park.
SEE HISTORY, PHOTOS AND MAPS IN ATTACHED REPORT IN SOURCES
