Toronto's Top 40

[adma]

And speaking of Campbell House, there's also the Grange to contend with, if we want to reach back real early...

 

[ShonTron]

My Top Picks Updated - now my top 40 (bolds indicate additions from above)

Georgian:
Osgoode Hall
Campbell House

Victorian:
The Distillery District (despite recent additions).
Don Jail
Gooderham Building
Humber College South Campus (former Ontario Hospital)
Old City Hall
Queen's Park
St. James Cathedral
St. Lawrence Hall
St. Paul's Catholic
University College

Edwardian/Art Deco:
College Park/Carlu
Bank of Commerce
Bank of Nova Scotia
Canada Life
Canada Permanent Building
RC Harris
Royal York
Union Station
Whitney Block

Modern:
CNE Collection of remaining modernist buildings (Food, Queen Elizabeth, Better Living)
CN Tower
Eaton Centre
Hilltop Residences
Imperial Oil
New City Hall
Ontario Place
Ontario Science Centre
Prii's best work: Prince Arthur Towers.
Robarts (token brutalist)
Scarborough Civic Centre
Scarborough College
Toronto-Dominion Centre

Neo-modern/Contemporary:
AGO
BCE Place
Gardiner Museum
National Ballet School
OCAD
ROM

Honourable mentions:
Fort York
Old Bank of Montreal (HHoF)
Confederation Life
Simpson's (exterior)
Sterling Tower
Roy Thomson Hall
Massey College
Scotia Plaza
Lillian H. Smith
Four Seasons Centre (very conditional, for the auditorium and the City Room)

And if I were to include the GTA 905:
Mississauga City Hall
Erindale College Complex (excluding the North Building, but including the new buildings and even the South Building, as crappy the interior is)
Peel Heritage Complex (1865-67 Court House, Jail, Registry Building), Brampton
York Region Centre, Newmarket

 

[adma]

No mention of Colborne Lodge? (And maybe a few more vintage churches here and there, St. Stephens In the Fields, St. James The Less--maybe a few cemetery tombs to go with that, Gzowski in St James, Massey in Mt Pleasant--and, getting to the brink of the Modern era, Holy Blossom Temple...)

Such, BTW, are the perils of including the "pre-Modern" in a Top 40.

 

[Tewder]

...and no Casa Loma?

 

[adma]

Or Spadina House, for that matter?

(At this rate, the only object in that general nabe that'd make the grade might as well be Taivo Kapsi's 1968 concrete house on Ardwold Gate...)

 

[Archivist]

I love that house! Hard to photograph, but just amazing. And the contrast between its harsh concretey beauty and crumpled old street name of "Ardwold Gate" is too tantalizing for me.

 

[egotrippin]

Top 40 would require some thinking, but my definite favourites are:

Commerce Court North
TD Canada Trust Tower
Scotia Bank Plaza
Old City Hall
St. Lawrence Hall
St. James Cathedral
Whitney Block
Ontario Legislature Building
Union Station
Canada Life Building
TD Centre

Most of my favourites are pre-WW2, and I haven't explored non-downtown areas nearly as much, so my list is ever changing.

 

[TKTKTK]

I'd like to nominate Our Lady of Lourdes:

 

[adma]

Top 40 would require some thinking, but my definite favourites are:

Commerce Court North
TD Canada Trust Tower

In the case of those two, I wonder how legit it is to "compress" the Top 40 so that Commerce Court and BCE/Brookfield in toto become individual entries...

 

[egotrippin]

In the case of those two, I wonder how legit it is to "compress" the Top 40 so that Commerce Court and BCE/Brookfield in toto become individual entries...

Not at all, as I find the TD Canada Trust Tower to look much better than the Bay Wellington tower, which has always seemed somewhat missing something.

As for Commerce Court, the north building is vastly different and far more beautiful than anything else in that complex. The west building isn't bad, though not in my favourites, and the other two are ugly little concrete boxes.

 

[adma]

As for Commerce Court, the north building is vastly different and far more beautiful than anything else in that complex. The west building isn't bad, though not in my favourites, and the other two are ugly little concrete boxes.

If you're going to epitomize it that way, you clearly don't understand I.M. Pei's conception...

 

[egotrippin]

If you're going to epitomize it that way, you clearly don't understand I.M. Pei's conception...

*sigh* i guess my tastes just aren't refined enough to comprehend it

 

[TKTKTK]

*sigh* i guess my tastes just aren't refined enough to comprehend it

You stupid, stupid, stupid cheddingtonista. LOL!

Honestly, certain members' pronouncements are starting to get a little excessive (not to mention repetitive). "You don't like it, ergo you don't understand it and you're in love with McMansions". LOL!

 

[jn_12]

I've always been impressed with some of the buildings at the CNE. The Liberty Grand is probably in my top 5 favourite buildings in the city.

 

[ShonTron]

I can see why Casa Loma isn't on people's list. The history of the place really makes it like WR Hearst's Castle in San Simeon (the inspiration for CF Kane's Xanadu and CM Burn's Burns Manor), or like a mega, mega McMansion.

OK, it's more than a big McMansion. It's a McCastle. The tourists love it. And I don't mind that it's there at all, I like it actually, it fits in to the local landscape in its own way, but it's not a top 40 hit.