DK Travel : Toronto : Architecture

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BCE Place

Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava designed the striking atrium of this 1990 office complex. Its steel-and-glass canopy creates enchanting patterns of light and shadow. Façades of 19th-century buildings have been preserved in the Yonge Street frontage.
City Hall

Causing a significant stir in 1960s Toronto, the design of New City Hall is bold, daring, and unique. Finnish architect Viljo Revell’s two curving towers seem to embrace the central domed structure between them. A sweeping public plaza out front, Nathan Phillips Square, is the symbolic heart of the city (see City Hall).
City People

Colorful aluminum figures spin softly in the breeze.
CN Tower

Defining the skyline, Toronto’s most recognizable architectural icon is also the world’s tallest freestanding structure (see CN Tower & Its Views).
Elevated Wetlands

Don River water is recycled as it filters through plants atop large white bearlike forms.
Old City Hall

Now a courthouse, this Richardsonian Romanesque building, completed in 1899, was designed by the architect responsible for many of Toronto’s grandest historic buildings, E. J. Lennox. For the best view of the clock tower, look north up Bay Street (see Old City Hall).
Ontario Legislative Building

The best view of this massive Richardsonian Romanesque building (1892), the seat of provincial government, is from College Street, looking north past the expanse of lawn. Built on the former site of a lunatic asylum (political pundits take note), the richly carved exterior is matched by the ornate interior (see Ontario Legislative Building).
Royal Bank Plaza

The 14,000 mirrored windows of the two towers (1977) are insulated with 24-karat gold – $70 worth on each window, for a total of some $1 million, money saved on heating.
Search Light, Star Light, Spot Light

Three hollow metal columns are pierced by hundreds of stars; lit from within, they glow like searchlights.
Sharpe Centre for Design

Propped up on 100-ft (30-m) stilts, British architect Will Alsop’s addition to the Ontario College of Art and Design is playful and audacious. The two-story “tabletop” building connects to the main building via a sloping tunnel.