3 Best Sights in Toronto, Ontario

One of several wedge-shaped buildings found across North America, Toronto’s Flatiron Building sits on the triangular block bordered by Wellington, Scott, and Front streets. Built in 1892, it originally served as the head office of the Gooderham and Worts distillery. On the back, a clever trompe l’oeil mural by Derek Besant wraps around the windows, creating the illusion that part of the building has been tacked to the wall and is peeling away.

Built in 1850 on the site of the area’s first public meeting space, St. Lawrence Hall showcases Renaissance Revival architecture at its finest. Originally designed for musical performances and balls, the hall hosted famous opera soprano Jenny Lind and became a venue for antislavery demonstrations and P.T. Barnum’s first presentation of Tom Thumb. Take a moment to admire the exterior of this architectural gem, now used for everything from concerts to wedding receptions. If you join one of the many walking tours in the area, you’ll likely find photos on the third-floor lounge of 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.