Legacy of the past
Iroquois fortified village with palisades and longhouses, then French trading post (the legendary Fort Rouillé): the city had several lives before becoming a key city of the province of Upper Canada created in 1793, under the name of York, by the English who applied a grid layout with military rigor. Only two buildings remain from this period: the Scadding Cabin and the John Cox Cottage. From the 19th century on, the city became a capital and began to grow. While the modest population continued to live in log houses, the Loyalist elites built opulent Georgian-style houses, of which the Palladian style is one of the most famous "branches". Harmony, balance and an assumed reference to Antiquity characterize this architecture, which was intended to be the translation of British colonial power. The most beautiful representatives of this style are The Grange, with its large pediment overhanging superb central bays, the William Campbell House and Montgomery's Inn, the oldest hotel in the city, now a museum. This restrained style paved the way for the neoclassical style found in public buildings such as Osgoode Hall, the seat of the Law Society of Upper Canada, which is recognizable by its classical porticos set on arcades. While the buildings that symbolized power retained the neoclassical style, private residences and industries gradually resorted to the very eclectic Victorian style. The Distillery Historic District is the largest example of Victorian industrial architecture. St. Lawrence Hall, with its rich ornamentation, is another powerful example of the Victorian era, as are the superb houses in neighbourhoods such as Cabbagetown, Yorkville and Rosedale, where one can admire a typically Toronto Victorian style, the bay and gable style, characterized by a large bay window in the front and a high gabled roof, a reference to Gothic verticality and a form perfectly adapted to the narrowness of the plots. It was also at this time that the city was modernizing, with sewers and gas street lighting.
Birth of a metropolis
In the late 19th century, Toronto became a powerful industrial and commercial center. In architectural terms, this resulted in the use of historicist styles, a kind of romantic vision of an idealized past, especially for power buildings. The Romanesque Revival, with its powerful arches and stone ornamentation, was very popular. It was this style that Richard Waite favoured for the imposing Ontario Legislature, the focal point of the great University Avenue. But the great architect of the period was E. J. Lennox, who designed theOld City Hall, Gladstone House and especially the incredible Casa Loma overlooking Davenport Hill. This house is a real architectural potpourri mixing Norman, neo-Gothic and late Romanesque styles in a set inspired by the Scottish castle of Balmoral. The polychromy of the building is especially appreciated, between the grey of the Ontario sandstone, the bluish grey of the Romanesque stone and the red of the tiles. If the styles are historical, the comfort is resolutely modern: the house has electricity! Lennox has even given birth to another Toronto style, specifically in the Annex neighbourhood, called the "Annex House" style. Turrets and mansard roofs characterize these superb brick homes, which borrow from both the Romanesque Revival and the more subtly ornamented Queen Anne style, also found in the rows of red brick houses to the east and west of downtown.
Alongside these European influences, there was also a growing trend towards architecture inspired by American trends, starting with the Beaux-Arts style, with its neoclassical rigor and elegance, used in public buildings and especially banks, which, with their pediments and colonnades, became the temples of the new century that was about to begin. Another beautiful Beaux-Arts style building was Union Station with its wide façade and long Doric colonnade framed by porticos. Another trend from the United States was the commercial style and its first skyscrapers. The most famous is the Confederation Life building (designed by architects from Chicago, where skyscrapers were invented) with its metal frame still hidden by a Romanesque-Gothic façade. The Robert Simpson department store reflects the evolution of the Chicago style towards more sobriety, especially in the ornamentation. It is also the first building to have a fireproof metal frame, a structure that is no longer masked by a historicist façade. Modernity is on the march, as evidenced by the new thinking in domestic architecture that is part of a return to a more naturalist trend inspired by the simplicity and rusticity of the English Arts and Crafts movement and the first garden cities whose creation is encouraged on the outskirts of the city, as evidenced by the work of Eden Smith who designed the housing of the bucolic Riverdale Courts.
Triumph of modernity
In the first part of the twentieth century, historicist trends were still very popular on university campuses, which used the college gothic style in abundance, as shown by the Hart House of the University of Toronto with its square tower and pointed arch windows, but also in hotels such as the Royal York, which looked like a castle, or in skyscrapers such as the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Then, progressively, these forms became more sober, as can be seen in the Holly Blossom Temple, whose arches are reminiscent of the neo-Romanesque, but whose powerful, exposed concrete structure heralds modernity, particularly Art Deco. The simple, sober geometric forms and the art of ornamentation of Art Deco can be seen in the Toronto Stock Exchange or in the department stores, as well as in the Horse Palace on the site of the Canadian National Exhibition. Also inspired by industrial architecture, the Horse Palace is astonishing for its angular composition, its cubist forms and its decorative friezes.
Modernity then took on the features of functionalism, also known as the International Style. The forms are simplified to the extreme - one could almost speak of boxes -, the use of glass, concrete and steel is systematic and the function takes precedence over the ornamentation. The two most famous representatives of this trend are the new Toronto City Hall and the Toronto Dominion Centre. The former, designed by John B. Parkin and Viljo Revell, is striking with its two curved towers and the circular Council Chamber between them. The exterior alternates between large glass surfaces and ribbed concrete, and the arches and walkways are reflected in the water of the plaza in front of City Hall, reflecting new thinking about the importance of large public spaces. The second building, at least its first two towers (other towers will be added later), is the work of the legendary Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, who in his last major project expresses his sober, light and modular style, combining concrete, steel and glass. Here again, the buildings are designed around a central paved square.
This period was also the period of suburban expansion. In the 1940s, the suburbs were developed in a planned manner according to checkerboard patterns. Then in the 1950s, new urban planning ideas emerged, as evidenced by the amazing Don Mills district, whose architecture was inspired by the very refined Bauhaus style and which was the first new city truly designed on the garden city model, where the human element was given primacy. The district itself is divided into four parts, each including a school, a church and a park, and organized around a large commercial center. A green belt links the different parks together. But the demographic pressure was becoming more and more pressing, and it was necessary to be able to build more and faster. This is how the Flemingdon Park project was born, with its high density buildings freeing up space for pedestrian walkways and green spaces. But this plan was a bit of an exception because most of the new neighborhoods were springing up like mushrooms with many skyscrapers and large complexes, leading to the destruction of many historic neighborhoods. At that time, one architect stood out with his unique apartment buildings inspired by Le Corbusier's "towers in the park", but with a very expressionist architecture: it was Uno Prii, who designed buildings such as the Vincennes with its white flared façade and its canopy, or 44 Walmer Road with its play of curves, its semicircular canopy and its fountain with parabolic arches. This expressiveness begins the transition to post-modernism that architects such as John Lyle and his Runnymede Library, combining classical architecture and native motifs, or RJ Thom and his astonishing Massey College, which combines simplicity of plan and richness of ornamentation, particularly in the chiseled work of the concrete, were already announcing.
Contemporary renewal
Toronto quickly attracted some of the world's leading thinkers in architecture and urban planning, beginning with the renowned philosopher and urban planner Jane Jacobs, who has always protected historic districts from brutal urban renewal, which she believes creates soulless spaces. Instead, Jacobs advocated the richness and complexity of mixed-use neighborhoods that welcomed modernity while preserving rich heritage. She was also a fierce opponent of expressway expansion. The city of today owes much to her, and to discover her, you can participate in the annual Jane's Walk in May. Another component of postmodern architecture is the integration of environmental constraints, resulting in cities within cities designed to protect against the rigors of the climate. The best example is the Toronto Eaton Centre, a vast system of multi-storey courtyards with a glass roof, connected to the subway and to the streets outside. The other key figure in Toronto's revival was architect Barton Myers, who was passionate about the city and creating rich urban environments that blended tradition and modernity harmoniously. Thanks to him, many neighbourhoods were saved from demolition. We owe him the astonishing Wolf House, a house on steel stilts that allows us to see its "entrails" for the first time. He was a major inspiration for the creations of the KPMB agency, which also gives a very important place to the context and history of the place. The agency was responsible for King James Square and the Tudhope offices, which harmoniously incorporate historical elements into the contemporary building, as well as the National Ballet School of Canada and its high glass tower.
This architectural renewal is accompanied by an urban renewal. Former industrial sites were rehabilitated and transformed into housing or stores, and the emphasis was placed on public spaces and pedestrian walkways, as evidenced by the extensive network of promenades that criss-crossed the city and offered pedestrians new views of the city. Today's young architects are following in this footsteps, while advocating a style that emphasizes linearity, sobriety and natural materials.
But if Toronto is famous today, it is perhaps first and foremost for its constantly changing skyline. The city has hundreds of skyscrapers, both built and planned. This construction frenzy is a reflection of the youth of this gigantic metropolis, which is currently experiencing its construction peak. Among the most famous skyscrapers are the emblematic CN Tower, whose 553 m have dominated the city since the 1970s; the no less famous First Canadian Place and its 355 m; Commerce Court West, designed by the famous architect Ieoh Ming Pei; Scotia Plaza; and the TD Canada Trust Tower and the Bay Wellington Tower, both designed by the famous American agency SOM and the no less famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. All of these towers are located in the Financial District, which contains the largest number of skyscrapers in the country. But in reality, all the districts and especially all the peripheral suburbs also have their center with skyscrapers. Among the future towers not to be missed: The One by Norman Foster which, with its 338 m, should be the tallest residential building in the world (scheduled to open in 2024).
Alongside these cathedrals of glass and steel, Toronto is also home to treasures created by starchitects from around the world. Daniel Liebeskind designed the extension to the Royal Ontario Museum, a stunning steel structure clad in aluminum and punctuated by large windows; Frank Gehry transformed the Art Gallery of Ontario with his titanium-blue New Gallery, with a long, corrugated roof covered in glass panels, supported by curved wooden beams that let in the light, and traversed by an astonishingly sculptural spiral staircase; Will Aslop imagined the amazing Sharp Center for Design, a sort of table covered with black and white pixels supported by 26 m high multicolored steel pillars; and let's not forget the MAD agency who designed the Absolute Towers that Torontonians nicknamed "Marilyn Towers" because of their astonishing and generous curves animating the facades and making them almost alive. In 2023, it was the great Renzo Piano who realized his first Canadian project with the completion of the new courthouse designed according to the principles of transparency and sustainability. A city in constant motion, Toronto imagines the future with amazing projects that advocate sustainable architecture. Centennial College is expected to see the first solid wood, zero-carbon university building, with a structure that draws on both Aboriginal and Western cultures in a spirit of truth and reconciliation (scheduled to open in 2023). Meanwhile, 3XN has designed the largest solid wood office building in the emerging Bayside district. But the focus is now on Quayside, where a vibrant, inclusive and resilient community is being envisioned to play a central role in the city's reorientation towards Lake Ontario. So Toronto has many more surprises in store!
