On the corner of Shuter and Victoria Streets in Toronto, the red-brick facade of Massey Hall has the dignity of its 19th-century origins, but inside the air hums with new electricity. Behind cast stone and stained-glass windows, KPMB Architects has completed a multi-year renovation of the 1894 concert hall. Reborn as the Allied Music Centre, the project included a renovation of the interior, a restoration of the exterior, and a 7-story addition of glass and steel that brings rehearsal rooms, recording studios, and gathering spaces into harmony with the historic venue.

Commissioned by industrialist and philanthropist Hart Massey as a secular meeting place, the venue was designed by Sidney Badgley with a Palladian exterior and a Moorish Revival interior. Its original 3,500 seats, now pared to 2,550 plush red-velvet ones, cradled audiences for performances by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Mendelssohn Choir. The hall’s acoustics have also made it a recording landmark with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie’s Jazz at Massey Hall from 1953 and Neil Young’s Live at Massey Hall 1971, tracing the resonance of the room’s scalloped plaster ceiling.
Show with bright lights at the interior of Massey Music Hall.
In the historic hall, an automated retractable floor system now allows the orchestra level to transform into a standing-room venue for more contemporary acts. (Courtesy KPMB Architects)

KPMB’s design was led by founding partner Marianne McKenna with founding principal Chris Couse and senior associate Graham Baxter, with restoration consulting from GBCA Architects. The team rehabilitated the building’s red-brick shell, intricate plaster canopy, and stained-glass windows that had been boarded https://www.archpaper.com/2025/11/kpmb-toronto-massey-hall/over since the 1950s due to sound disturbances.