Architecture: Symbol for a City

With a whoosh of Royal Canadian Air Force jets streaking across the sky and a blaring salute from the 100-man honor guard below, Toronto this week will begin celebrating its sparkling new city hall. Before the festivities are over, there will be fireworks, folk dancing in the plaza, a symphonic rendition of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, and a Toronto a go-go with no fewer than six rock ‘n’ roll bands. Such civic fanfare is unusual even in fast-growing Toronto. But after eight years of waiting and the expenditure of more than $30 million, Torontonians have decided to take their daring new structure to heart.

Preparations really began in 1957, when then-Mayor Nathan Phillips launched an international design contest for the new city hall, which drew 520 entries from 42 countries. Five distinguished judges, including the late Eero Saarinen, finally gave the nod to Helsinki’s Viljo Revell, and for good reason. Architecture was then struggling free from the glass and steel web of anonymous buildings popularized by Mies van der Rohe. With the inspiration of Le Corbusier’s massive concrete government buildings in Chandigarh and Niemeyer’s skyward-lofting Brasilia, architects at last felt free to conceive of civic structures as needing neither to be placed under a dome or strait-laced into an office-building suit. Revell’s entry came closest to what the judges were hoping for—a civic grouping that was both symbolic and functionally practical.

Clear Victory. Architect Revell did not live to see his city hall completed, but the finished building has remained remarkably true to his original concept. Rising up from Toronto’s mixture of old and new buildings, it has taken the shape of two curved towers (27 and 20 floors, respectively) that, like gigantic hands, cup the central civic plaza. There, standing like a champagne glass on a single stem, is the low city-council chamber and mayor’s office. Beneath the complex is a four-level parking garage with space for 2,400 cars. Setting the center off from its drab surroundings is a plaza with fountains and a reflecting pool that will double as a skating rink in winter.

The architect’s clear victory was in designing a unique complex that dominates the city’s skyline, presenting a distinct, unforgettable image. “The whole thing is so unorthodox and individual, it grows on you like free sculpture,” one architect confessed. “It will never get lost in all the redevelopment that will come to the area, and it won’t be dwarfed by the giant buildings that will grow around it.” But for many viewers, the closer they approach, the more questions get raised. The solid concrete and marble exteriors of the two office structures seem as forbidding as a medieval keep and have reminded more than one critic of corn silos.

Joy & Pride. Even some of the daring innovations seem questionable. For instance, all secretaries are given the interior glass walls; officials are relegated to the windowless exterior spaces. The concrete ramps (a favorite Le Corbusier device) and walkways that frame the central plaza add an unwanted clutter. The central, mushroomlike structure is shaped to give the mayor a sumptuous office and the city council an imposing, showcase chamber. But it tapers underneath, around the supporting stem, to fairly unusable space that is filled mainly with a blue-broadloom-covered circular staircase adorned with padded horsehair railings. “I guess you’d call this a meditative spot,” says City Hall Coordinator George Bell.

With the furniture still being moved in, however, Torontonians were in no mood to cast too fine an eye on their new joy and pride. A poll indicated that nine out of ten were enthusiastic. Typical was the response of one home-town girl back from Italy: “Just looking at that building makes me proud.” And as for incumbent Mayor Philip Givens, he could barely contain his pride. “It’s unusual, unique, daring, bold,” he declared. “It typifies the spirit of Toronto. It’s a smasheroo.”