LAYNG, John Arthur (1912-1974), active in Toronto as an architect and town planner. Born in Smith’s Falls, Ont. on 19 March 1912, he studied at the University of Toronto and graduated from the School of Architecture there in 1937. He had a wide-ranging interest in art and sculpture, and wrote an essay on the subject in 1938 (R.A.I.C. Journal, xv, June 1938, 139-41, illus.). He was later elected as an Associate member of the Royal Canadian Academy in Ottawa (E. McMann, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts - Exhibitions and Members, 1981, 235).
His best-known work in Toronto was the modernist residence and studio for the artist R. York Wilson (1907-1984), who created large scale murals for the interiors of The O’Keefe Centre, and for the Imperial Oil Building and several other Toronto landmarks. Layng was also the designer of the York Mills Shopping Centre, one of the first outdoor suburban shopping plazas erected in the new town development of Don Mills (1953-54) and designed in a contemporary idiom with extensive use of natural fieldstone walls on the exterior. Layng died in Oshawa, Ont. on 8 September 1974 (death notice Globe & Mail [Toronto], 10 Sept. 1974, 49; inf. Ontario Assoc. of Architects).
OWEN SOUND, ONT., major addition to Owen Sound Collegiate & Vocational School, 1949-51 (C.R., lxii, Aug. 1949, 221; Globe & Mail [Toronto], 29 July 1954, 3, descrip.; R.A.I.C. Journal, xxxii, Feb. 1955, 44-47, illus. & descrip.)
TORONTO, ONT., Church of the Comforter, Coxwell Avenue at Cosburn Avenue, 1953 (Globe & Mail [Toronto], 3 Oct. 1953, 15, illus.)
NORTH YORK, York Mills Shopping Centre, York Mills Road at Don Mills Road, 1953 (R.A.I.C. Journal, xxx, May 1953, 69, illus.)
NORTH YORK, Barber Greene Canada Ltd., Don Mills, warehouse, 1953 (R.A.I.C. Journal, xxxi, Jan. 1954, 16, illus.)
SCARBOROUGH, ONT., Cliffcrest United Church, Kingston Road at McCowan Road, 1953-54 (Globe & Mail [Toronto], 24 April 1954, 12)
TORONTO, ONT., residence and studio for R. York Wilson, Alcina Avenue, overlooking Wychwood Park, 1955 (Globe & Mail [Toronto], 20 Dec. 2010, page M 11, biog. for Lela M. Wilson)
ETOBICOKE, Bloordale United Church, Bloor Street West opposite Neilor Crescent, 1960 (inf. Richard Longley, Toronto)