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Toronto is a city with a very diverse style of architecture, some structures dated back to the 1800s, while some other is just newly built in the 2000s. Toronto is an architectural hotspot featuring uniquely designed buildings from many of the most celebrated architects in the world. The list includes such names as Frank Gehry , Daniel Libeskind , Norman Foster , Will Alsop , I. M. Pei , Santiago Calatrava , and Mies Van Der Rohe as well as award-winning local firms, such as Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners, Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg (KPMB) and Diamond Schmitt Architects. OVERVIEW Daniel Libeskind has redesigned the internationally recognized Royal Ontario Museum , North America's fifth largest. Libeskind reinvented Canada's largest museum as a series of enormous “crystals” that will rise dramatically five storeys from the street surface. Frank Gehry 's redesign of the Art Gallery Of Ontario will completely alter the museum inside and out. The new front façade of the gallery will become an exercise in transparency, with the upper level transformed into a new sculpture court. A recent arrival on the Toronto skyline is Will Alsop ’s “tabletop” at the Ontario College Of Art And Design on McCaul Street . This spectacular structure consists of a two-storey rectangle suspended about 40 metres (130 ft) above ground on brightly coloured steel legs. In June 2006, the Four Seasons Centre For The Performing Arts opened as the new home of the Canadian Opera Company and The National Ballet Of Canada . Designed by Diamond Schmitt, the 2,000 seat opera house has a European style tiered horseshoe-shaped auditorium. The University Of Toronto campus is another site of major change. Since 2001, Canada’s largest university has expanded adding many new buildings. Included are a number of residences and faculty buildings designed by the noted Norman Foster and Behnisch Architekten. The main buildings, the Leslie Dan Pharmaceutical Building (Foster) and the Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research (Behnisch), are lantern-like towers that bring the university happily into the modern age. Other major projects have recently taken place at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art , the Royal Conservatory Of Music and the National Ballet School Of Canada . These were designed by Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg (KPMB), a firm that is playing a major role in transforming Toronto architecture. KPMB are also responsible for the design of Bell Festival Centre, a major new cultural facility dedicated to the celebration of film and the Toronto International Film Festival. NOTABLE STRUCTURES BCE Place is an office complex in downtown Toronto, which consists of two towers, the Bay Wellington Tower and the TD Canada Trust Tower, linked by the six-storey Allen Lambert Galleria. BCE Place is also the home of the Hockey Hall of Fame. The Allen Lambert Galleria, sometimes described as the "crystal cathedral of commerce", was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava . It is one of the most photographed spaces in Toronto's financial district, and is heavily featured as a backdrop for TV and film productions. (the tallest building in the complex, at 57 storeys, and the tallest building in Canada from 1972-1976), Commerce Court East (14 storeys), and Commerce Court South (5 storeys). Mies Van Der Rohe 's Toronto Dominion Centre (66 Wellington St W), is a black modernist complex of six imposing towers. The tallest office building in the city is First Canadian Place , which is 72-storeys high, was constructed in 1976 and has an antenna height of 355 metres (1,165 ft). EXTERNAL LINKS |
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