Architectural Record lauds Allied Music Centre/Massey Hall renovation and expansion

Toronto’s modernized and expanded Allied Music Centre/Massey Hall, a beloved city institution, is featured in the August 2025 issue of Architectural Record.  

KPMB Maximizes a Narrow Site to Add State-of-the-Art Facilities to a Storied Toronto Concert Hall highlights the firm’s architectural response to an unusually narrow urban site and a nationally significant cultural landmark. 

Writer Matthew Allen commends the approach for its restraint and clarity, writing, “The addition’s curtain-like exterior sets off the brick pile of Massey Hall like a sleek train to a venerable old engine.” The piece emphasizes how the design enhances, rather than competes with, the heritage character of the original building while meeting complex spatial and acoustic requirements for contemporary performance. 

The feature notes the successful integration of advanced programmatic elements: new performance venues, rehearsal and recording spaces, and circulation infrastructure within a constrained downtown footprint. Allen describes the project as “an impressively orchestrated fusion of restoration, innovation, and urban choreography.” 

Architectural Record’s recognition underscores the project’s contribution to the ongoing evolution of Toronto’s cultural landscape and to the larger conversation on how architecture can honour the past while shaping the future. 

Read the full piece here. 

Learn more about the project here.