Photography by Ben Rahn / A-Frame Photography
The new Orillia Public Library and Market Square dramatically refresh downtown Orillia. The library’s fritted glass facade shimmers in the sunlight—a delicate counterpoint to the weighty red brick piers of the adjacent, Victorian Opera House. The library’s windows, decorated with syncopated, vertical bands of foliage, add surprising decoration to the otherwise clean and contemporary building. This ornamentation stems from the town council’s desire, as is typical of many regional towns with a proud history, to construct a new building that would compliment its nineteenth and early twentieth century neighbors.