When Mies's towers scraped the sky

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40 years ago, the TD Centre's completion signalled that the city had arrived as a global player

May 28, 2007 10:31 AM

Christopher Hume
MILESTONE

They're no longer the tallest buildings in the city, but the highrises of the Toronto-Dominion Centre still tower above the rest.

Forty years after the complex was officially opened, they remain the finest example of modern architecture in these parts.

Not everyone loves them, it's true, but in terms of design quality and attention to detail, nothing else comes close. And at this point, it's safe to say, never will.

Though he is listed simply as a consultant, the man who designed the TD Centre, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, ranks among the giants of 20th-century architecture. It was he as much as anyone who invented the building forms in which we live and work to this day.

Sadly, few architects managed to match the mastery that Mies brought to this project, and modernism quickly became a race to the bottom. Little wonder cities around the world look so much the same.

But for Toronto, the significance of the TD Centre went well beyond architecture. This was the city's declaration that it was no longer a sleepy provincial burg, but a global player. It had arrived. The choice of Mies, among the most famous practitioners in the world, was a clear signal that Toronto wanted to be taken seriously. If he was the best, we must be, too.

Certainly, by the time Mies began work on the TD, he had completed similar schemes in many cities. Our complex might have resembled others, but Toronto got the benefit of Mies's considerable experience. Given that his was an architecture based on restraint and refinement, it only makes sense that the later projects were his most polished. Don't forget, it was Mies who said famously, "Less is more," and who proclaimed, "God is in the details."

Anyone who takes time to look at these buildings close up – especially the banking pavilion on the corner of King and Bay – will be rewarded. The way that each marble slab is aligned perfectly with the next; the English oak trim; the granite podium inside the pavilion and out; the precise spacing between the towers themselves; these are the kinds of details that preoccupied Mies, and that make the TD so impressive.

Though work on the complex continued after his death in 1969, the concept had been laid out. Once the first three towers were completed – the last, Canadian Pacific, in '74 – two more were added, TD Waterhouse ('85) and Ernst &Young ('91).

Few buildings in Toronto achieve the same kind of perfection as these; indeed, not many even try. This desire for purity imbues the centre with a spirituality not found in any other commercial complex. There are prettier buildings around, but none more handsome.