DOUBLING DOWN
Two stellar projects – New City Hall and the TD Centre – announce a city’s arrival
Every 50 years or so, Toronto experiences a watershed moment. That happened at the turn of both the 20th and 21st centuries and again halfway between the two. In every instance, the results were dramatic, none more so than what unfolded in the 1960s, when Toronto decided to show the world what it could do when it put its collective mind to it. Two especially spectacular examples are New City Hall, one of the most compelling such structures in the world, and the Toronto-Dominion Centre, whose internationally recognized architecture spawned copies in every corner of the planet.
When it opened in 1965, New City Hall – as it’s still called – turned heads here and everywhere. No one had ever seen a building like it, let alone a civic headquarters. In truth, the planning goes back to the late 1950s, when the city launched an unprecedented international design competition. It attracted 510 entries from 42 countries and was a global event in its own right. The jury of five included three renowned architects, Eero Saarinen (US), Sir William Holford (UK) and Ernesto Rogers (Italy). Its first task was to choose seven finalists, who were then invited to refine their designs.
The winning scheme, submitted by little-known Finnish architect Viljo Revell and his team, was the last thing Torontonians expected. Unlike Old City Hall, the impressive Romanesque structure that preceded its successor by barely six decades, the proposal was modern, forward -looking, even futuristic. It was also one of the most compelling architectural expressions of civic democracy ever conceived. A pair of curved towers embraces a saucer-shaped council chamber, the symbol of democracy, where the city’s most important decisions are taken.
The complex is set back from Queen St. at the north end of Nathan Phillips Square, named in honour of the mayor who championed the project. It is still Toronto’s only genuinely civic space and its finest piazza. This is a place of celebration and demonstration. It is also among the best spots in the city to sit and eat a hot dog. A raised walkway separates the square from its bustling surroundings without creating a sense of isolation. If anything, the square gives the feeling of being in the centre of things—the very heart of Toronto.
A few blocks south, at Bay and King, the TD Centre, constructed between 1964 and 1969, looms over the Financial District, a presence whose purity of form transcends the restrictions of function and other such worldly concerns. The attention to detail lavished upon the complex by its architect, the seminal German-American Modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, goes beyond anything found in conventional office towers, no matter how expensive or prestigious they may be. Like New City Hall, the Miesian ensemble is the creation of an all-encompassing architectural vision. From the placement of the towers and their respective heights to the interior stone panels and the travertine cladding, every aspect of the centre contributes equally to a unified whole.
The banking pavilion, which sits in the northeast corner of the TD Centre’s blocksized site, brings to life Mies’s famous dictum that “Less is more.” With its perfectly aligned marble wall slabs, English oak counter tops and granite floor, the simple glass-and-steel box is one of the best-appointed bank branches in this or any city. Its longing for perfection brings an almost spiritual quality to a building whose purpose is more prosaic. It is more temple than a bank.
In truth, Mies was as fortunate to find a patron as enlightened as TD Bank ’s former CEO and chair, Allan Lambert, as the latter was to find Mies. The one empowered the other. Together, they changed Toronto. TD Centre’s architectural and material excellence set the standard by which all others would be judged. Though the International Style Mies pioneered would quickly spawn imitators (the sincerest form of flattery), in his hands it was an opportunity to build unapologetically beautiful spaces.
Together, the TD Centre and New City Hall tell the story of a city emerging from the shadow of its muddy provincial past to become a player on the larger stage. For the first time, Toronto realized that greatness was within its grasp. The two projects catapulted the city into the global spotlight. People everywhere were suddenly paying attention. Toronto was becoming more comfortable in its role as one of the world’s most liveable cities and a beacon of civic success. These investments ensured the future vitality of the downtown core and, with that, the rest of the city.