Toronto Guide
Toronto
Nathan Phillips Square
Back in the city centre on Queen Street W, Nathan Phillips Square is one of Toronto's most distinctive landmarks. Laid out by the Finnish architect Viljo Revell in the 1960s, the square is framed by an elevated walkway and focuses on a reflecting pool, which becomes a skating rink in winter. Toronto's modernist City Hall overlooks the square, its curved glass-and-concrete towers fronted by The Archer, a Henry Moore sculpture that resembles nothing so much as a giant propeller. Revell won all sorts of awards for this project, which was then considered the last word in urban design, though today its rain-stained blocks look rather dejected. Had Revell's grand scheme been fully implemented, the city would have bulldozed the old City Hall, a flamboyant pseudo-Romanesque building on the east side of the square. Completed in 1899, it was designed by Edward J. Lennox, who developed a fractious relationship with his paymasters on the city council. They had a point: the original cost of the building had been estimated at $1.77m, but Lennox spent an extra $750,000 and took all of eight years to finish the project. Nevertheless, Lennox had the last laugh, carving gargoyle-like representations of the city's fathers on the arches at the top of the front steps and placing his name on each side of the building – something the city council had expressly forbidden him to do.