Building Styles

Thunder Bay

The Province of Ontario Building on Water Street was a joint project done by Arthur Erickson, a very well known west coast architect and Reginald Nalizetti, a local one.

It is a classic Post Modern building in that it uses traditional architectural vocabulary in a new and impressive way. The front colonnade is a good example. The columns have neither bases nor capitals, but a decorative band level with the first floor lintels. There is an exaggerated cornice atop the architrave which has three horizontal bands. There is no ornament, not even fluting on the columns, and instead of marble, the columns are metal. Behind the colonnade, the building is a cutain wall of glass with an open concept foyer. Winding around the colonnade is a balustrade leading to other portions of the building and a landscaped front.

Barrie

This is a back portion of the City Hall in Barrie, completed in 1985. This portion has a rotunda made of smooth concrete with diminishing bands rusticated stone. The rotunda has a pediment -like triangular addition on the top that seems to intersect the cylindrical shape adding a detail that centers your focus.

University Center, McMaster

Ontario Universities are now judged by their facilities to accomodate and amuse students as much as for their library collections and course offerings. This building, designed by Moriyama and Teshima Architects in Burlington Ontario, is a lovely, open, spacey building that augments the various buildings of the "Arts Complex" with a large variey of fast food outlets and an open space for presentations, gatherings, and many vending stalls.

The upper walkways provide a light, airy passageway towards the second level administrative offices and classrooms.

The Center is joined to Mills Memorial Library with a covered awning. Mills has an astonishingly good collection of books and articles plus one of the best Rare Book collections in the country.

Ottawa

In an effort to learn from the past and utilize design features that have stood the test of time for centuries, architects have been rethinking the column, the arch, the window, and virtually every other element of Classical architecture. This residence, which is largely gold metal and glass, offers a modern solution in ancient vocabulary.

The covered portico is supported by columns with rusticated bases and orbs that project above the "architrave" and cornice of the covering. The front façade makes liberal use of round-headed arches and floor to ceiling windows. The effect is stunning.

Ottawa

The International style introduced the use of windows as a continuous curtain wall. These were generally in box-shaped buildings with coloured spandrel panels and heavy mullions.

This building in Ottawa takes the glass curtain wall a step further, until it is a continuous reflecting surface that melds into the sky. The shape of the building, like many Post Modern buildings, particularly in England, creates an optical illusion. If you look too long at where the building meets the sky you lose a sense of what is really happening at the top.

There is no allegorical or symbolic use of Classical motifs, no rearranging of forms, no clever twists; this is just an ultramodern building using natural light and indeed nature itself, to create a visual sensation.

Toronto

In Toronto the number of Post Modern buildings is staggering. This Late-Modern office building - in front of but definitely not part of the CN Tower - makes good use of reflective glass and polished stone. A drum-like central column seems to be held in place by rectangular towers. On the side is a purposely unfinished prism on top of another tower.

This building exists in the downtown core and reflects the image that most people have of Toronto: poured concrete, metal, polished stone and glass. The modern office buildings have been placed among the older buildings to the advantage of both.

Newmarket

The City Hall in Newmarket, in contrast to the buildings above, is a sprawling organic structure in a rural setting. Four clock towers with four clocks each pointing in a different direction flank the front entrance. A colonnade supporting a plain cornice provides the heart of the building; all offices and departments radiate from here. The four storeys of the building have undulating balconies and curved walls of glass on platforms of decreasing size. The building seems to have grown out of the ground it was built on.

Toronto

Looking out from Queen's Park in Toronto is this reflective arc of glass. In front of it is the new Leslie Dan Pharmaceutical Building.

Museum of Civilization
Douglas Cardinal

Like many architects who have work in Ontario, Cardinal has done beautiful buildings of a similar nature throughout the world. The most apt phrase to describe his buildings is 'ribbons of stone. The forms intertwine, undulate, and are organic in the real sense of the word.

Museum of Civilization
Ottawa - Cardinal

The Museum of Civilization in Hull - Ottawa - its across the river - is one of the vbest examples of his style.

Bay Street

Toronto

In Toronto the number of Post Modern buildings is staggering. This Late-Modern office building - in front of but definitely not part of the CN Tower - makes good use of reflective glass and polished stone. A drum-like central column seems to be held in place by rectangular towers. On the side is a purposely unfinished prism on top of another tower.

This building exists in the downtown core and reflects the image that most people have of Toronto: poured concrete, metal, polished stone and glass. The modern office buildings have been placed among the older buildings to the advantage of both.

Toronto

Toronto City Hall was designed by

Newmarket

The City Hall in Newmarket, in contrast to the buildings above, is a sprawling organic structure in a rural setting. Four clock towers with four clocks each pointing in a different direction flank the front entrance. A colonnade supporting a plain cornice provides the heart of the building; all offices and departments radiate from here. The four storeys of the building have undulating balconies and curved walls of glass on platforms of decreasing size. The building seems to have grown out of the ground it was built on.

Ottawa

One of the best known buildings in Canada, the National Gallery of Canada, completed in 1988, was designed by Canadian architect Moshe Safdie.

This image is of the multi-level, crystal, entrance pavilion. This is the crossing in an L shaped plan. From here the public galleries radiate in a number of directions.

Unlike the Crystal Palace and other large conservatory-like buildings, this dome has a flat top and many angular steps to the top. Its many tiers echo the Neo-Gothic Parliament Buildings that are across the road.

Safdie

Safdie is perhaps best known for his Habitat done for expo 67.

Mississauga

The Mississauga City Hall, completed in 1987, was designed by Jones and Kirkland Architects of London Ontario.

The building uses many modern interpretations of historical motifs such as a rotunda, a central tower with a clock, an agora - a Greek market place or meeting place - and arcades. The council chamber is within the drum of the rotunda, administration takes place in the tower, and everything else takes place in the rectangular areas of the building. The overall effect is not similar to that of a Classical building at all.

In the words of Mark Franklin, the set pieces are "clearly legible: cylinder, prism, cube, pyramid and shaft, with chaos just around the corner" (Canadian Architect, June 1987, Vol. 32, #6).

Guelph

Post Modern design is not limited to large, civic buildings. Restaurants, retail outlets, and residences are also finding that a mixture of basic geometric shapes works well.

The Kaleidoscope restaurant in Guelph has a multiplicity of historical motifs updated and applied to a modern setting. The column has no base and no capital, but does have an attractive triangulated bracket on a copper finish. Above the column is a purple band with a white trim. Halogen lights illuminate the bar area where the surfaces are metal and marble. The upper railing is ornamented with medallions.

The kitchen is open to the public as in an outdoor restaurant. Purple bands tie the kitchen area to the rest of the restaurant. The elements are old, but the application is brand new.

Hamilton