The Globe and Mail

Toronto, the malleable, -- oh, ye burgeoning metropolis of the arrivistes and the just arrived -- is being thankfully converted: from a city of mostly mediocrity to a place of occasional astonishment. Three buildings, all of them by Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects, amazed me this year: the Young Centre for Performing Arts, the Gardiner Museum and Canada's National Ballet School. All three express a joyous belief in the city.