The Empire Building

The Empire Building is a YMCA social centre constructed between 1939 and 1940, designed by Kenneth J. Lindy. It is located within the Royal Victoria Country Park. The building is timber-framed and clad in weatherboarding and cedar shingles, with cedar shingle roofs featuring gabled and hipped ends and concrete brick stacks.

The building is arranged in a T-shaped plan; the main range houses a hall, while an east cross-wing contains billiard and quiet rooms, and stair towers are positioned in two angles. The main hall range is single-storey with an aisle featuring glazed doors and a clerestory above. A lean-to roof continues from the main hall and integrates into a lower roof on the left-hand side. The gable end of the two-storey cross-wing is located on the right, along with a stair tower in the angle, featuring a tall window, a hipped roof, and a lean-to porch. Further details include two small louvred roof ventilators, a stack with set-offs at the gable end of the lower roof on the west side, a hipped roof projection with a stack rising up the front on the east side of the cross-wing, and a flat-roofed outshut to the main range at the rear (north) along with another stair tower in the angle. Casement windows feature glazing bars.

The interior is notable for its construction based on Canadian principles, eschewing traditional mortice and tenon joints and utilising diagonal planking. It showcases a wide variety of timbers donated by 79 members of the Timber Trade Federation, sourced from across the British Empire. These timbers are incorporated into the hall's dado, radiators, piers, brick chimney breast flanks, and the stage, with ebony fillets. Similar timber treatment is found in the billiard room, while the Quiet Room features a dado constructed from a hundred different timber planks. The architect created a large map of the British Empire illustrating the origins of the timbers used in the building’s construction.