The last significant era of architectural production that transformed the fabric of the city was in the 1960s and early 70s by modernists such as Peter Dickenson, Ron Thom, and international architects Mies Van der Rohe, Viljo Revel, and I.M. Pei. The projects of this era – the Toronto Dominion Centre, the City Hall, the former O’Keefe Centre and First Canadian Place – have maintained their legibility within the development and evolution of the city.

Against this legacy, I’m interested in the specific form of neo-modernism being practiced by the current generation architects here. Their form of neo-modernism is rounded out in the urban cosmopolitan matrix – this modernism is warmer, more tactile and expressed as a fascination with material that is more artisanal, and, at least at street level, more responsive to the urban context – using strategies of integration distinctive yet sympathetic with what already exists. You begin to look around and the discreet interventions – portals, facades, storefronts, courtyards, laneway houses etc. are gaining a critical mass, and establishing a distinctive character for Toronto’s architectural fabric.