Iconic buildings part of NORR’s 75 year history

A crowd of people attended NORR’s 75th anniversary reception in early June at the Biagio Ristorante in downtown Toronto. The Toronto-based multidisciplinary firm of architects, engineers and planners, is an independent subsidiary of Ingenium with a staff of 700 in 21 cities globally.

As part of the celebrations, the company produced a large coffee-table sized book outlining the history of the firm and some of its iconic building projects of the past. The firm’s began in 1938 as the architectural office of John B. Parkin. It went on to become one of the few firms to integrate engineering with architecture services, and helped design numerous iconic modern buildings. These include the Toronto City Hall and Toronto-Dominion Centre in the 1960s, many lesser known buildings around the Don Mills area of Toronto, St. John’s City Hall and Ottawa Train Station. In the 1980s and 90s the firm helped design the Skydome (now Rogers Centre) in Toronto, as well as buildings overseas such as the National Bank of Dubai. More recently in the 2000s NORR helped design the Calgary Courts Centre, and today the company’s projects in progress include 180 Wellington, which is the new home for the House of Commons for the Government of Canada in Ottawa; the Waterloo Region Courthouse in Kitchener, Ontario (as part of Integrated Team Solutions); and the large and complex Union Station Redevelopment under way in Toronto;

NORR also recently produced a forensic report on the Algo Centre Mall collapse in Elliot Lake, northern Ontario.

The Waterloo Region Courthouse, downtown Kitchener, Ontario, a recent project for which NORR was the architect on behalf of the Integrated Team Solutions (ITS) Consortium. The building consolidates three regional Superior and Ontario Courts facilities into one facility, housing 30 courtrooms, two Intake courtrooms and six conference rooms.