The Toronto Hydro-Electric Building at 14 Carlton Street was completed in 1933. It was designed by Chapman and Oxley with associate architect Albert E. Salisbury. It was built at the same time Eaton’s was building their College Park store. It was believed that the new Eaton’s store would create a new financial district in this area. The building has four of these faces staring down from the top of the building.

Having proven themselves capable of innovative skyscraper design, Chapman and Oxley were selected to design an imposing new headquarters for the hydroelectric company. The Toronto Hydro Electric Commission Building (1932-1933), near the corner of Carlton and Yonge, was hailed by contemporary critics as “one of the outstanding architectural achievements of recent years.” The 10-storey limestone structure that was built, however, was just a fraction of the project the architect and engineer had intended when the Great Depression forced the company to scale back.

Chapman and Oxley was a Toronto-based architectural firm responsible for designing a number of prominent buildings in the city in the 1920s and 1930s.

Alfred Chapman was among the dominant figures in Toronto architecture in the first half of the 20th century, designing buildings as diverse as libraries, the Old Mill Tea Room, Sterling Tower, Maple Leaf Stadium, the Princes’ Gates, and Holy Blossom Temple.

Although guided by underlying principles learned at the École des Beaux-Arts, Chapman’s prolific output was eclectic, ranging from the classical to the Gothic, Romanesque Revival, pre-Renaissance English, and Art Deco in decorative treatment. His work was warmly embraced by the public and press for much of his career, earning him major institutional commissions from the Toronto Hydro Electric Commission, the Royal Ontario Museum, Sunnyside Amusement Park, and the Bank of Montreal.

Albert E. Salisbusry (1887-1955) served as a Staff Architect with the Toronto Hydro-Electric System overseeing the design of local transformer stations throughout the city. His signature work is undoubtedly the remarkable Glengrove Electric Substation (1930-31), an outstanding Collegiate Gothic landmark set within the residential fabric of North Yonge Street in Toronto.

He can be credited with over 20 hydro substation designs between 1921 and 1950, many in a distinctive Beaux-Arts style (such as the Parkdale Substation, 1927), and the authorship of his designs can often be identified by the original drawings for each building which are signed “A.E.S.”, and still in the possession of Architectural Dept. of the Toronto Hydro-Electric System Head Office on Carlton Street.