Toronto Star

Every half century or so, Toronto suddenly wakes up to the fact it is a city. It happened first in the late 1800s when architect E.J. Lennox was commissioned to design what we now call Old City Hall. More than 100 years later, it remains the pre-eminent example of high Victorian optimism. Then, in the 1950s and '60s, we built Viljo Revel's New City Hall, still the most exhilarating piece of architecture in these parts, and that brooding modernist monument, the Toronto-Dominion Centre, by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Now it's our generation's turn and architecture is once again front and centre. But the focus has shifted from the civic realm to the cultural. It seems everywhere one turns these days, a museum, gallery or concert hall is under construction. And let's be clear, these projects do not just address the institutions' need for more space, they're about building and transforming Toronto.