The Globe and Mail

City Hall

Sonja Stewart was just 15 years old when she heard the news that changed her life forever. It was 1958 and her father, an architect, had just won an international competition to design a high-profile public building in another country and, after his initial scouting mission there, was going to send for his wife and three daughters. Since the teenager spoke little English, this would be an adventure indeed. This Tuesday marks the 40th anniversary of the official opening of that building and, just as it changed the life of the Revell family forever, it also changed the life its host city. New City Hall, designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell, is the most important building Toronto erected in the 20th century. In many ways, the very provincial Toronto of the middle 1950s probably deserved the Marani and Morris design that had already been approved: A tall, grey, dour slab with little windows sitting on a sad, square podium, it would have blended nicely into the background -- a non-offensive government building in a no-risk government town (as an aside, the design did get built, without the podium, as Imperial Oil's headquarters at 111 St. Clair Ave. West).