Two curved towers around a clam-shaped council chamber, which the city's own architects thought was a mistake.
By the late 1950s Toronto had outgrown its Romanesque 1899 city hall and held an international competition for a new one. Five hundred and twenty entries came in from 42 countries.
The winner, chosen in 1958, was the Finnish architect Viljo Revell: two curved towers of unequal height — 20 and 27 storeys — facing each other around a low domed council chamber, the whole thing sitting on a podium above a public square.
Seen from above, the composition is often described as an eye. The towers curve to embrace the chamber, and the backs are windowless concrete.
Revell died in 1964, a year before it opened.
The reception
Toronto’s architectural establishment largely disliked it. The local profession had wanted a local architect, several prominent figures campaigned against the design, and there was a public argument about the cost.
It is now on the city’s coat of arms, in the logo, and is the building every Torontonian draws when asked to draw Toronto.
Nathan Phillips Square
Named for the mayor who pushed the competition through — Toronto’s first Jewish mayor, elected in 1955.
The square is the city’s civic space: protests, concerts, food festivals, the Christmas market, and the skating rink that the reflecting pool becomes each winter, under the Freedom Arches.
The 3D TORONTO sign, installed for the 2015 Pan Am Games as a temporary structure, was so heavily used that it was made permanent and later rebuilt. It is lit in different colours for occasions and there is almost always a queue to photograph it.
Henry Moore’s Three Way Piece No. 2, universally known as The Archer, stands on the square. The city refused to buy it in 1966 and Nathan Phillips raised the money privately, which caused a considerable row at the time.
Old City Hall
Directly across Bay Street, and the better building of the two.
E. J. Lennox’s Romanesque Revival courthouse and city hall of 1899, in Credit Valley sandstone, with a 100-metre clock tower. Lennox was refused permission to put his name on it and carved his own likeness into the gargoyles instead, along with a frieze that is said to caricature the councillors who blocked him.
It served as a courthouse until 2023 and is being converted; check what is accessible.
Practicalities
The square is free and open at all hours. City Hall’s council chamber has a public gallery and meetings are open.
The green roof on the podium is open in summer and almost nobody knows about it.
More Landmarks
CN Tower
553 metres of concrete built to fix a television reception problem, with a glass floor and an option to walk around the outside.
Casa Loma
A ninety-eight-room Gothic Revival folly built by a financier who lost it to unpaid taxes within a decade.
The Toronto Islands
Fifteen islands a ferry ride offshore, with no cars, a residential community that fought eviction for forty years, and the best view of the skyline.