Nathan Phillips Square - The City Hall of the Future

Photo: Bernard Spragg. NZ, CC0 (cropped)

A stop on Toronto Downtown Walk, a free self-guided tour.

Now look at the two curved towers that changed how Toronto saw itself. In 1958 an international design competition drew hundreds of entries from 42 countries, and the winner was Finnish architect Viljo Revell. His plan, two crescent towers of different heights cradling a saucer-shaped council chamber, looked like nothing else in Canada. Revell died in 1964, a year before the building opened in September 1965.

The square is named for Nathan Phillips, the mayor who championed the competition and Toronto's first Jewish mayor, a sign of a city being remade by postwar immigration. Today close to half of Toronto's residents were born outside Canada.

In winter the reflecting pool turns into an outdoor skating rink beneath its concrete arches, and the big TORONTO sign, first set up for the 2015 Pan Am Games, is the city's favourite photo spot. Look too for Henry Moore's bronze sculpture The Archer, unveiled here in 1966.

Getting here: Cross Bay Street at Queen; the square opens up just west of Old City Hall.

Did you know?: When council balked at the price of The Archer, Mayor Phil Givens raised private money to buy it, and the uproar is often blamed for his election defeat. Moore later gave hundreds of his works to the Art Gallery of Ontario, your next stop.

Photo op: Stand at the south end of the square so the TORONTO sign and the reflecting pool sit in front of both curved towers.

More on Wikipedia: Nathan Phillips Square · Toronto City Hall · Viljo Revell · Henry Moore

Nathan Phillips Square - The City Hall of the Future

Stops on this tour