Design
The Design Competition That Opened Toronto to the World
When it needed a new city hall in 1958, Toronto received more than 500 submissions from all over the globe. The winning design still endures today.
The election of Nathan Phillips as mayor in 1955 marked a symbolic shift for Toronto. Phillips would leave a lasting legacy through his insistence on having an international design competition for a new city hall.
“Part of the reason for the competition was a real desire to assert a new identity for the city,” says George Kapelos, associate professor of architecture and planning at Ryerson University and author of Competing Modernisms: Toronto's New City Hall and Square. Phillips was the city’s first Jewish mayor. “Up until then, Toronto had been a very Protestant city ruled by an Anglo-Irish elite,” he adds.