3 Best Sights in Toronto, Ontario

One of several wedge-shape buildings scattered around North America, Toronto's Flatiron occupies the triangular block between Wellington, Scott, and Front Streets. It was erected in 1892 as the head office of the Gooderham and Worts distilling company. On the back of the building, a witty trompe l'oeil mural by Derek Besant is drawn around the windows, making it appear that part of the building has been tacked up on the wall and is peeling off.

Built in 1850 on the site of the area's first public meeting space, St. Lawrence Hall is Renaissance revival architecture at its finest. The hall was intended for musical performances and balls, and famed opera soprano Jenny Lind sang here, but it's also the spot where antislavery demonstrations were held, and where P. T. Barnum first presented Tom Thumb. Take time to admire the exterior of this architectural gem, now used for everything from concerts to wedding receptions. If you take part in one of the many walking tours of the area, you'll likely see photos (in the lounge on the third floor) featuring notable figures who performed, lectured, or were entertained here.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a virtuoso of modern architecture, designed a significant portion of this six-building office complex, though he died before its completion in 1992. As with his acclaimed Seagram Building in New York, Mies stripped the TD Centre's buildings to their skin and bones of bronze-color glass and black-metal I-beams. The tallest building, the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower, is 56 stories high. The only architectural decoration consists of geometric repetition. Inside the low-rise square banking pavilion at King and Bay Streets is a virtually intact Mies interior.