The Globe and Mail

People in Toronto have just discovered that architecture is interesting, it seems, and it's about time. How almost the entire 20th century could pass with so little restriction on banality, with so little public discussion of the miserable ugliness of our endless low-rise sprawl and our appalling urban non-planning is quite beyond belief. The era of bovine complacency seems to be over, and buildings are actually stimulating opinions now.

There are so many new buildings going up, both public/institutional and residential/commercial, that it is impossible not to have an opinion. There are 52 high-rise buildings under construction in Toronto, and 233 more planned. There are controversies everywhere: Over the value of luring the famous-name architects (Gehry is designing the new art gallery, Libeskind the new museum, the British provocateur Will Alsop has already done a wild and wonderful number with the art college); over the mushrooming of identical mirrored condo towers; and, over plans for new luxury skyscrapers that are obviously ego machines for competitive men.