Construction Blog

These data cables were a welcomed sight in Flavelle House recently. Wifi access will improve tremendously for classrooms in this building after the renovations, and will exist where previously it did not.

Most of the cables have now been fed into the conduits below that lead to the new network node for the renovated space and the Jackman Law Building.

These conduits are also new, carrying data cables from the outside communications tunnels that feed into the basement mechanical centre of Flavelle, and to the network node.  Did you know that this centre also provides communications support to Hart House and the Faculty of Music's Edward Johnson Building?

Mark your calendars for our ‘Welcome to Vic’ BBQ on September 12th, for our law students, faculty and staff starting at 5 pm in the beautiful Vic Quadrangle.

If you haven’t already done so, feel free to visit our new space in the Birge-Carnegie building.  Please keep in mind that the site is currently in the midst of renovations and moves, so not yet at its best but we’re working on it.

Tours begin the last week of August and will continue into the first weeks of school.

In addition, look out for our ‘Ask Me’ guides, staffed by our law students, in September. They’ll be stationed around Vic to answer your questions about where things are in our new space.

As always, you can read our FAQs of where things are going to be in our Transition Space for 2013-14. 

As you know, Victoria University’s Birge-Carnegie building will be the new law student hub, and will include a student lounge and kitchenette, as well as the interim Bora Laskin Law Library and a large library reading room for quiet study.

Almost done! Books are going into the transitional space at Victoria University, as the Bora Laskin Law Library sets up its temporary home in the Birge-Carnegie building, across the street from the law school.

Only a portion of the Bora Laskin Law Library is being unpacked here. Some law books have moved to Robarts Library, and some have been put in storage.

On the main floor, staff are settling in their cool Gothic-like offices with high ceilings and antique windows. And a large room with an abundance of natural light is set aside as the reading room for the library.

The light renovations continue to make this space 'our own' for law students, faculty and staff.

In the mean time, unpacking and shelving is ongoing in anticipation of the library reopening on Monday, July 29th at 9 am.

The library's Alykhan Halani gave me a quick tour of the space at Birge-Carnegie.

The various pieces of artwork in the Bora Laskin Law Library, Portrait of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, by Duncan MacPherson, The Supremes, by Charles Pachter (donated by McMillan Binch) and several in Flavelle have been carefully packed up, moved and stored at the University of Toronto Art Centre.

Collections manager Heather Darling Pigat supervised the move last week. Seven pieces in total were removed for safe storage during the renewal project, and included the two in the rotunda area, Untitled by Claude Simard (purchased and donated by the Class of 1989), Potentate Set by Harold Town (donated by the Hon. Justice Sydney and Gloria Robins) and from the Faculty Lounge, Pond by Joseph Raffael. 

Pigat says she hopes to bring out some of these paintings in a fall exhibition at UTAC. “It’s a great way for staff, faculty, students and the public to see some of the nearly 700 works in the University of Toronto Art Collection that are available for loan to on-campus borrowers through the Art on Campus Program.”

The portraits of the Flavelles hanging in the dining room are also in storage, while all the deans’ portraits will be moved and displayed in the Birge-Carnegie Building, the Victoria University transitional space for law classes, student common areas and lectures for the next two years.