Brookfield Place - Calatrava's Crystal Vault

Photo: Eric Marshall, CC BY 3.0 (cropped)

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

Walk in from Bay Street and look up. Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava designed the Allen Lambert Galleria as a six-storey arcade of white steel ribs that branch overhead like trees in a forest, and it was finished in 1992 along with the rest of Brookfield Place. People have called it a cathedral of commerce, and on a grey day it really does feel like a sunlit nave.

The developers kept the past in sight. A dozen heritage buildings were preserved within the complex, including the old stone bank at the corner of Front and Yonge that you will see next.

This is a good place to meet PATH, Toronto's underground walkway. Head down a level and the signs lead into about 30 kilometres of tunnels and shopping concourses linking dozens of buildings, from Union Station north toward City Hall. The idea goes back to 1900, when the Eaton's department store dug a tunnel under James Street, and today more than 200,000 people use the network on a typical day.

Getting here: Walk back east along Front Street past Union Station, turn left on Bay Street and enter Brookfield Place on the east side of Bay.

Did you know?: The galleria is named for Allen Lambert, a longtime head of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, whose headquarters towers stand just across Wellington Street.

Photo op: Stand in the middle of the galleria floor and shoot straight down its length; the white ribs line up into a tunnel of arches.

More on Wikipedia: Brookfield Place · Santiago Calatrava · Path

Brookfield Place - Calatrava's Crystal Vault

Stops on this tour