Toronto: Architecture

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Source: Yoldasin.

 
Toronto comes in for some ribbing about its architecture.

The Royal Ontario Museum, for example. It's as if the historic mother building were harboring a neonatal alien in its belly, and suddenly said alien yowwen burst forth, ravenous, ripping open its host.

Then there's the preposterous pencil and eraser construct for the Sharp Centre for Design. Literal art.

Sharp Centre for Design, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Credit: CNN.

When I think of the buildings in downtown Toronto, troops of tall, blue, glassine structures come to mind, interspersed with sandy-colored block buildings.

I also think about new buildings that have sprung up, which interrupt the light that their older neighbors used to enjoy. "Shadowing" is not a new problem for Toronto. On one day, Sandy left her Toronto apartment for a far-away island; upon her return a couple of years later, a brand-new neighbor had shouldered itself in - a tall condo building that darkened her balcony.

Overall, however, I don't know that Toronto is any less lackluster than most other cities. And to tell you the truth, I'm still kind of impressed there is a statue of a businessman, dressed in a business suit, in one of Toronto's pocket parks. It's a real departure from the usual public statue fodder, such as warriors, whether modern or historic.