New City Hall

The New City Hall is one of Toronto’s most characteristic landmarks. Overlooking the busy Queen Street West in downtown Toronto, the New City Hall is nicknamed “the eye of the government” because of its shape on a plan view. The building’s easily identifiable dual curved and almost identical towers surround a council chamber that is mounted on a raised platform, a creation of Finnish architects Viljo Revell, Heikki Castrén, Bengt Lundsten, and Seppo Valjus, as well as landscape architect Richard Strong, who designed the building after an international architectural competition that yielded submissions from 42 countries in 1958. Part of the competition also included the Nathan Phillips Square below, which is now home to overheard walkways, a reflecting pool, and large concrete arches – it remains one of Toronto’s main gathering places, and New Year’s Eve celebrations are held there every year. Although most residents considered it to be too futuristic at the time (especially considering it replaced a magnificent Victorian building), the New City Hall was truly visionary and is one of the main reasons Toronto now benefits from a metropolis status and is so often featured in movies. Visitors can tour the inside of City Hall as well as its green roof, added in 2009, the largest in the city.