Architect John Shaw created buildings that are restrained, friendly and warm

Despite the cold snap, a dozen people wait for the doors of Mimico Centennial Library to open. When the smiling librarian appears to grant access, a group of adolescents race up the open tread staircase to the mezzanine and set up a study group around a laptop, while an older man, laughing at their piss-and-vinegar, unfolds his newspaper and parks in front of an enormous floor-to-ceiling window. A mother and her young daughter wander over to the much quieter children’s area.

While it takes talent to design a house for a discerning client, it takes an altogether different skill set to design a building for, well, everybody. But this building, by Banz Brook Carruthers Grierson Shaw Architects, works as well today as it did when it opened in November, 1966. A Massey Medal winner for 1967, the Toronto Star wrote at the time that the building “incorporates an air of relaxation into an atmosphere of learning” and could “easily double as a community centre.”