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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.

Two austere, perfectly proportioned towers and a single-story pavilion of glass and black metal, all set on a broad plaza, are Toronto’s only design by International Style architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969). Built between 1964 and 1971, the complex spurred the skyscraper boom that gave birth to the city’s financial district. Four more towers were later added (see Toronto-Dominion Centre).

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

Founded in 1827 as King’s College, this institute has many refined, stately buildings, such as the Romanesque Revival-style University College (see University of Toronto).

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).

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).

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.

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.

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).

The Great Hall of this 1920s monumental stone railroad station has an 88-ft- (27-m-) high vaulted ceiling (see Union Station).