Description of Historic Place

The Old Land Titles Building is a Municipal Heritage Property occupying two civic lots on Smith Street East in the City of Yorkton. Situated on landscaped grounds, the property features a one-storey, brick-and-stone office building completed in 1908, with a addition added in 1930. A non-contributing addition was built in 1970.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the Old Land Titles Building resides in its status as one of a series of Land Titles Offices constructed in Saskatchewan between 1906 and 1914. Designed by the prominent Toronto architectural firm of Darling and Pearson during its tenure as provincial architects, the building's monumental proportions projected an image of function, strength, permanency, and modernity desired by the province. Its prominent entablature, fan-shaped windows, symmetrical façade, and decorative stone entrance way reflect a Georgian Classical style. The sharp contrast between the brick-and-stone finishing materials, as well as the quoining, also add to the building's monumental stature. Its interior elements, such as the vaulted ceilings, interior doors with original sheathed copper and rich woodwork, contribute to its sense of prestige, as does its siting several metres back from the street on landscaped grounds in the downtown core.

The heritage value of the Old Land Titles Building also resides in its association with the Land Titles system. The transfer of land administration from the Federal to the new Provincial government in 1906 necessitated the construction of several new buildings to house Title records. The importance of these records required that the building be fireproofed according to the standards of the time. These requirements included the extensive use non-combustible building materials such as reinforced concrete, stone and metal sash window and door fixtures. In the 1930s, the increasingly busy Lands Office received an annex on the southern side of the building.

Source:

City of Yorkton Bylaw No. 28/89.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Old Land Titles Building resides in the following character-defining elements:
-those features that reflect the building's Georgian Classical style of monumental architecture, such as its symmetrical façade, metal cornice, Tyndall Stone frieze, architrave, fan-shaped windows with keystone detailing, and the carved stone pilasters and lintels that surround the decorative entrance way;
-those elements that speak to the building's sense of prestige, including its massing and proportions, the stone quoining, the interior doors with original sheathed copper, the brick-and-Tyndall Stone façade, and stone detailing;
-those features that speak to its role as a land titles office, such as the Saskatchewan provincial crest and signage over the main entrance, and the vaulted ceilings;
-its siting on landscaped grounds in the downtown core.