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The Toronto-Dominion Centre, or TD Centre, is an office complex in the
Financial District A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies and other related finance corporations have their head offices. In major cities, financial districts are often home to s ...
of
downtown Toronto Downtown Toronto is the main central business district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located entirely within the district of Old Toronto, it is approximately 16.6 square kilometres in area, bounded by Bloor Street to the northeast and Dupont Str ...
owned by
Cadillac Fairview The Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited is a Canadian company that invests in, owns, and manages commercial real estate, mainly in Canada and the United States. As of March 2017, the company had 73 properties, encompassing 38 million square feet ...
. It serves as the global headquarters for its anchor tenant, the
Toronto-Dominion Bank Toronto-Dominion Bank (french: links=no, Banque Toronto-Dominion), doing business as TD Bank Group (french: links=no, Groupe Banque TD), is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. T ...
, and provides office and retail space for many other businesses. The complex consists of six towers and a pavilion covered in bronze-tinted glass and black-painted steel. Approximately 21,000 people work in the complex, making it the largest commercial office complex in Canada. The project was the inspiration of Allen Lambert, former president and chairman of the board of the Toronto-Dominion Bank. Sister-in-law
Phyllis Lambert Phyllis Barbara Lambert, (née Bronfman; born January 24, 1927) is a Canadian architect, philanthropist, and member of the Bronfman family. Life Born in Montreal, Quebec, she studied at The Study, a premier independent school for girls, and wa ...
recommended
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloy ...
as design consultant to the architects, John B. Parkin and Associates and Bregman + Hamann, and the Fairview Corporation as the developer. The towers were completed between 1967 and 1991. An additional building was built outside the campus and purchased in 1998. As Mies was given "virtually a free hand to create Toronto-Dominion Centre", the complex, as a whole and in its details, is a classic example of his unique take on the International style and represents the end evolution of Mies's North American period.


Background

After the 1955 merger of the Bank of Toronto and the Dominion Bank solidified in 1962, the Toronto-Dominion bank directors decided to commission a new headquarters to demonstrate the bank's emergence as a reputable national institution. Allen Lambert, past-president and chairman of the board of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, secured a cooperative partnership in the late 1950s with the Bronfman-owned developer, Fairview Corporation (now
Cadillac Fairview The Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited is a Canadian company that invests in, owns, and manages commercial real estate, mainly in Canada and the United States. As of March 2017, the company had 73 properties, encompassing 38 million square feet ...
); this marked a first for the development process in Canada, in that a bank, rather than creating its head office alone, had aligned itself with real estate interests and the city to influence urban space. The partnership was established as a 50–50 relationship, with the bank having the final say on the design of the complex and
Phyllis Lambert Phyllis Barbara Lambert, (née Bronfman; born January 24, 1927) is a Canadian architect, philanthropist, and member of the Bronfman family. Life Born in Montreal, Quebec, she studied at The Study, a premier independent school for girls, and wa ...
—sister-in-law to Allen Lambert and a member of the
Bronfman family The Bronfman family is a Canadian family, known for its extensive business holdings. It owes its initial fame to Samuel Bronfman (1889–1971), the most influential Canadian Jew of the mid-20th century, who made a fortune in the alcoholic distill ...
—was called in as an advisor on the TD Centre competition.
Gordon Bunshaft Gordon Bunshaft, (May 9, 1909 – August 6, 1990), was an American architect, a leading proponent of modern design in the mid-twentieth century. A partner in Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Bunshaft joined the firm in 1937 and remained with ...
, then chief designer of
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer John Merrill. The fir ...
, was hired by the consortium. His proposal called for exterior structural supports for the main office tower, which then necessitated piston-like slip joints at the roof level to deal with weather-related expansion and contraction of the structure. Phyllis Lambert objected to this submission, later stating in an interview that it "was a ridiculous proposal on many levels.... Even in a milder climate, it would have been problematic." Bunshaft, due to his refusal to redesign, was relieved of his commission. This left John Parkin, the local architect who would have worked with the American Bunshaft, to design Toronto-Dominion Centre. His firm put forward a model showing a 100-storey, all-concrete tower—to be the largest in the
Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...
—standing over a plaza with a sunken courtyard containing a circular banking pavilion. It was at this point that Phyllis Lambert insisted that
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloy ...
(whom she knew from having been the director of planning on his
Seagram Building The Seagram Building is a skyscraper at 375 Park Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with minor assistance from Philip Johnson, Ely Jacques Kahn, ...
) be called for an interview. Mies was unimpressed by Parkin's concept and wondered why one would design a building to be entered through its basement. With this, the Parkin proposal was scrapped and Allen Lambert was convinced to bring Mies on board. Though he was technically commissioned as the design consultant to the local architects (who were still John B. Parkin and Associates, but partnered with
Bregman + Hamann Architects B+H Architects or BH Architects (formerly Bregman + Hamann Architects) is a Canadian architectural and engineering firm headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. The firm was founded in 1953 by Sidney Bregman and George Hamann. B+H is a member of the Su ...
), the project was essentially Mies's design in its entirety, demonstrating all the key characteristics of the architect's unique style. The choice of Mies and his design gave the project the added significance of being a symbol of Toronto's emergence as a major city. It also marked Mies's last major work before his death in 1969. This followed the precedent set by the previous incarnation of the Toronto-Dominion Bank: the Bank of Toronto's 1862 office at Wellington and Church Streets had been designed by
William Kauffman William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of ...
and its 1913 Beaux-Arts headquarters were conceived by
Carrère and Hastings Carrère and Hastings, the firm of John Merven Carrère ( ; November 9, 1858 – March 1, 1911) and Thomas Hastings (March 11, 1860 – October 22, 1929), was one of the outstanding American Beaux-Arts architecture firms. Located in New York City ...
. Both firms were the most renowned and respected architects of their times.


History


Construction

The development of the TD Centre required Fairview to acquire a full city block of downtown Toronto, except for some frontages on Bay Street and at the corner of King and York Streets. Among notable losses from the subsequent demolition were the
Rossin House Hotel Rossin House Hotel was a mid-19th century hotel located at the southeast corner of King Street and York Street in Toronto, Canada. The original structure was built in 1856 and was destroyed by a fire and re-built in 1863. It was one of the city' ...
, which dated to the 1850s and was once one of the city's preeminent hotels. The Carrère and Hastings Bank of Toronto headquarters, at the southwest corner of King and Bay Streets, was also razed despite protests urging that the Beaux-Arts building be incorporated into the new centre. Fairview officials brushed these aside and said that it "did not fit in". Elements of the old edifice can still be found as relics in
Guild Park and Gardens Guild Park and Gardens is a public park in the Scarborough district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The park was formerly the site of an artist colony and is notable for its collection of relics saved from the demolition of buildings primarily in ...
, in Scarborough. The first structure completed was the Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower (now the TD Bank Tower) in 1967. Though the complex remained unfinished, the official opening took place on 16 May of that year to coincide with the
Canadian Centennial The Canadian Centennial was a yearlong celebration held in 1967 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation. Celebrations in Canada occurred throughout the year but culminated on Dominion Day, July 1, 1967. Commemorative coins ...
celebrations, with
Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy (Alexandra Helen Elizabeth Olga Christabel; born 25 December 1936) is a member of the British royal family. Queen Elizabeth II and Alexandra were first cousins through their fathers, King George V ...
, presiding, accompanied by her husband, Sir Angus Ogilvy. At , the tower was the tallest building in Canada when completed. The completion of the banking pavilion and the Royal Trust Tower (now the TD North Tower) followed in 1968 and 1969, respectively. The Commercial Union Tower (now the TD West Tower) was added in 1974 and was the first on the site not conceived by Mies in his plan. It was followed by the IBM Tower (now the TD South Tower), built south of Wellington Street across from the original campus in 1985. The 23-storey building at 95 Wellington Street was completed in 1987 and contains . Cadillac Fairview acquired it in 1998 and incorporated it into Toronto-Dominion Centre. Finally with little available space left on or near the block, the final building—the Ernst & Young Tower (now 222 Bay Street)—was in 1992 constructed over the existing 1930s
Toronto Stock Exchange The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; french: Bourse de Toronto) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in the ...
.


1960s–2000

From November 27–30, 1967, the 54th floor of the newly finished Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower was the venue of the centennial year Confederation of Tomorrow conference, a summit of provincial premiers (except for
W.A.C. Bennett William Andrew Cecil Bennett (September 6, 1900 – February 23, 1979) was a Canadian politician. He was the 25th premier of British Columbia from 1952 to 1972. With just over 20 years in office, Bennett was and remains the longest-serving prem ...
) convened by Ontario Premier
John Robarts John Parmenter Robarts (January 11, 1917 – October 18, 1982) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 17th premier of Ontario from 1961 to 1971. He was a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. Early life Robar ...
. It was an unsuccessful attempt to achieve a provincial agreement for
amendments to the constitution of Canada Before 1982, modifying the Constitution of Canada primarily meant amending the ''British North America Act, 1867''. Unlike most other constitutions, however, the Act had no amending formula; instead, changes were enacted through Acts of the ...
proposed by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. In 1993,
Garry Hoy Garry Hoy (January 28, 1954 – July 9, 1993) was a Canadian lawyer who died when he fell from the 24th floor of his office building at the Toronto-Dominion Centre in Toronto, Ontario. In an attempt to prove to a group of prospective articl ...
, a 39-year-old lawyer of Holden Day Wilson, plunged 24 floors to his death after repeatedly charging a window while attempting to demonstrate its strength to a group of visiting law students.


21st century

The original three buildings and the plazas of Toronto–Dominion Centre were together recognized as a part of Ontario's built heritage in 2005, when an
Ontario Heritage Trust The Ontario Heritage Trust (french: link=no, Fiducie du patrimoine ontarien) is a non-profit agency of the Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Culture. It is responsible for protecting, preserving and promoting the built, natural and cultural herita ...
plaque was unveiled by
Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and Forfar, (Edward Antony Richard Louis; born 10 March 1964) is a member of the British royal family. He is the youngest child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the youngest sibl ...
, his wife,
Sophie, Countess of Wessex Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Forfar, (born Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones, 20 January 1965) is a member of the British royal family. She is married to Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and Forfar, the youngest brother of King Charles III. She grew u ...
, and former lieutenant governor of Ontario
Lincoln Alexander Lincoln MacCauley Alexander (January 21, 1922 – October 19, 2012) was a Canadian lawyer who became the first Black Canadian member of Parliament in the House of Commons, the first Black federal Cabinet Minister (as federal Minister of Labo ...
. The complex has been designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act since 2003. The designation notes "The Toronto-Dominion Centre is an outstanding example of the International Style of architecture." The concrete foundations, the load-bearing black-painted steel frames, the bronze-tinted glass curtain walls with mullions and a grid of exposed and painted steel I-beams, the revolving doors at the bases and, on the towers, the pilotis, are noted architectural features on the exterior of the buildings. Inside, "the interior finishes (granite, marble, travertine, and oak) and custom-built fittings in the Banking Pavilion, in the lobbies of the Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower and the Royal Trust Tower" are recognized heritage attributes. In 2007, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada declared the TD Centre a masterpiece of the twentieth century. In May 2017, to mark the 50th anniversary of the complex and Canada's 150th birthday, the buildings became the canvas of an art exhibition by Montreal artist Aude Moreau in which the buildings were used as a canvas to spell out “LESS IS MORE OR,” a take on Mies van der Rohe's famous expression. While this type of installation had been done elsewhere, this was the largest undertaking of its kind in the world.


Site

As with the
Seagram Building The Seagram Building is a skyscraper at 375 Park Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with minor assistance from Philip Johnson, Ely Jacques Kahn, ...
and a number of Mies's subsequent projects, the Toronto-Dominion Centre follows the theme of the darkly coloured, steel and glass edifice set in an open plaza, itself surrounded by a dense and erratic, pre-existing urban fabric. The TD Centre, however, comprises a collection of structures spread across a granite plinth, all regulated in three dimensions and from the largest scale to the smallest, by a mathematically ordered, grid. Three structures were conceived: a low banking pavilion anchoring the site at the corner of
King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen regnant, queen, which title is also given to the queen consort, consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contempora ...
and
Bay Street Bay Street is a major thoroughfare in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the centre of Toronto's Financial District and is often used by metonymy to refer to Canada's financial services industry since succeeding Montreal's St. James ...
s, the main tower in the centre of the site, and another tower in the northwest corner, each structure offset to the adjacent by one bay of the governing grid, allowing views to 'slide' open or closed as an observer moves across the court. The rectilinear pattern of Saint-Jean granite pavers follows the grid, serving to organize and unify the complex, and the plaza's surface material extends through the glass lobbies of the towers and the banking pavilion, blurring the distinction between interior and exterior space. The remaining voids between the buildings create space for the plaza and lawn. Phyllis Lambert wrote of the centre and the arrangement of its elements within the site: More towers were added over the ensuing decades, outside the periphery of the original site—as they were not part of Mies's master plan for the TD Centre—but still positioned close enough, and in such locations, as to visually impact the sense of space within areas of the centre, forming Miesian western and southern walls to the lawn and a tall eastern flank to the plaza.


Pavilion

The banking pavilion is a double-height structure housing the main branch of the bank. It contains fifteen modules within a single interior space, with smaller areas inside the pavilion cordoned off using counters and cabinets, all built with the typical rich materials of Mies's palette—marble,
English oak ''Quercus robur'', commonly known as common oak, pedunculate oak, European oak or English oak, is a species of flowering plant in the beech and oak family, Fagaceae. It is a large tree, native plant, native to most of Europe west of the Caucasus ...
, and granite. The roof of the building is made of deep steel I-sections, each beam supported on only one steel I-section column at each end, all combined to create a waffle-grid ceiling resting on a row of corresponding, equally spaced columns around the periphery. This structure was both a further development on the
post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional se ...
pavilion of the Federal Center in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
—which has fewer expressed columns and a second level balcony—and a precursor to the
Neue Nationalgalerie The Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the National Gallery of the Berlin State Museums. The museum building and its s ...
completed in
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
in 1968—which had a similar roof supported on only eight large steel columns. The TD Centre pavilion was described by ''
The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
'' as "among the best spaces Mies ever made". The banking pavilion's
living roof A green roof or living roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and drainage ...
was installed as part of Cadillac Fairview's goal of having the entire complex
LEED Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, construction ...
-certified by 2013. It is intended to help protect the building from solar heat gain, reduce storm runoff, and contributes to air quality.


TD Conference Centre

The area below the Pavilion serves as the TD Bank Conference Centre, completed in 2018. The space was originally home to a 690-seat
Famous Players Famous Players Limited Partnership, DBA Famous Players, is a Canadian-based subsidiary of Cineplex Entertainment. As an independent company, it existed as a film exhibitor and cable television service provider. Famous Players operated numerous m ...
movie theatre, which would prove to be one of the most fertile palettes for Mies's minimalist aesthetic. The first screenings were ''
Wait Until Dark ''Wait Until Dark'' is a play by Frederick Knott, first performed on Broadway in 1966 and often revived since then. A Wait Until Dark (film), film version was released in 1967, and the play was published in the same year. Synopsis Susy Hendrix ...
'' and '' Reflections in a Golden Eye''. The cinema was used for gala events such as the Canadian Film Awards, now the Canadian Screen Awards, and the Toronto International Film Festival. The theatre operated for approximately one decade until, in 1978, the space was repurposed in light of the proliferation of multiplexes throughout the city. The space was used for offices and storage until its eventual transformation into a conference centre.


Public space

Between the towers are two large expanses, collectively known as Oscar Peterson Place. The northern space contains a more formal tract of granite, while the southern space contains the lawn and features ''The Pasture'', a sculpture by Saskatchewan artist Joe Fafard, who died in early 2019. In addition to serving as sanctuaries for building occupants, the plazas have hosted events spanning music, athletics, entertainment and fundraising. The plazas were the first examples of privately provided large-scale public outdoor spaces within the urban core of Toronto. The space was named as part of the Toronto Legacy Project; Montreal-born jazz legend
Oscar Peterson Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian virtuoso jazz pianist and composer. Considered one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, ...
was on-hand for the ceremony.


Towers

The height of each of Mies's two towers is proportioned to its width and depth. All, save for 95 Wellington Street West, are of similar construction and appearance: the frame is of structural steel, including the core (containing elevators, stairs, washrooms, and other service spaces), and floor plates are of concrete poured on
steel deck Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...
. The lobby is a double-height space on the ground floor, articulated by large sheets of plate glass held back from the exterior column line, providing for an overhang around the perimeter of the building, behind which the
travertine Travertine ( ) is a form of terrestrial limestone deposited around mineral springs, especially hot springs. It often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, cream-colored, and even rusty varieties. It is formed by a p ...
-clad elevator cores are the only elements to touch the ground plane. Above the lobby, the building envelope is curtain wall made of bronze-coloured glass in a matte-black painted steel frame, with exposed I-sections attached to the vertical mullions and structural columns; the modules of this curtain wall are by , thereby conforming to the overall site template. The north side of the TD Bank Tower's 54th floor houses the TD Bank corporate offices. The interior of this space was also designed by Mies and included his signature broad planes of rich, unadorned wood panelling, freestanding cabinets as partitions, wood slab desks, and some of his furniture pieces, such as the
Barcelona chair The Barcelona chair is a chair designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich, for the German Pavilion at the International Exposition of 1929, hosted by Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The chair was first used in Villa Tugendhat, a privat ...
, Barcelona ottoman, and Brno chair. Adjacent to the main boardroom at the northeast corner of the floor plate and the Thompson Room at the northwest corner, service areas are concealed within the wood-panelled walls behind secret panels. The south side of the 54th floor houses Canoe, an Oliver & Bonacini restaurant. The 55th floor of the TD Bank Tower is now leased office space but was originally a large public indoor observation platform. This promontory allowed uninterrupted views of the development of the downtown core that the TD Centre had itself helped to spark, as well as Lake Ontario to the south. The floor was repurposed to office space when the
CN Tower The CN Tower (french: Tour CN) is a concrete communications and observation tower in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Built on the former Railway Lands, it was completed in 1976. Its name "CN" referred to Canadian National, the railway c ...
was completed in 1976, offering a viewing height of . 222 Bay Street contains in its base the former
Toronto Stock Exchange The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; french: Bourse de Toronto) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in the ...
building, built in 1937. The new edifice deviates from the strict Miesian aesthetic of all the previous towers to accommodate the
Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...
facade of the older building within its own. This tower is linked to the TD Bank Tower on the ground floor and by a two-level pedestrian bridge on the sixth and seventh floors.


Technical details


Underground concourse

The shopping concourse was seamlessly integrated beneath the towers — the first such mall in Canada — and was the genesis of Toronto's PATH system. Extending into this area was Mies's strict design sense; it was fitted in the same black aluminum and travertine as the main lobbies above. To maintain the clean and ordered aesthetic of the environment, Mies stipulated, with the backing of Phyllis and Alan Lambert, that the storefronts consist only of the glass panels and black aluminium that he specified. Even signage graphics were restricted to only white backlit letters within a black aluminium panel and only in the specific font that Mies had designed for the TD Centre. Renovations to the mall, beginning in the late 1990s, caused some controversy within the architectural community as building management, under pressure from retail tenants seeking greater visibility, relaxed the strict design guidelines and allowed more individual signage. Ceilings were also renovated from the original flat drywall planes with recessed lights to coffered ceilings.


Occupants

The Toronto-Dominion Bank serves as the anchor tenant of the office complex.


TD Gallery of Inuit Art

The TD Gallery of Inuit Art is a permanent gallery located in the southern half of the TD South Tower lobby. It is open to the public, free, through a partnership between TD Bank, the world's largest collector of Inuit art, and Cadillac Fairview, the property owner in whose lobby space the gallery is hosted. The bank's association with Inuit art can be traced to the Northwest Territories, where branch manager Allen Lambert oversaw its Yellowknife operation from 1946 to 1947. The branch was a two-room log cabin, with Lambert working in the front and living in the back. Lambert developed a keen interest in the art being produced by local artists. Twenty years later, as Chairman of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, he launched a Centennial project that would establish the bank as a strong ally in providing Inuit art with exposure within the organization and beyond.


Design Exchange

The easternmost tower, 222 Bay Street, contains in its base the historic Toronto Stock Exchange building, built in 1937. Since 1994, it has been home to the Design Exchange (‘DX'), Canada’s only museum dedicated to "design excellence". The genesis of the Design Exchange was a citizen movement seeking a centre that would celebrate the role of design in society. The group worked with the city for several years to bring the concept to fruition and, in 1994, the Design Exchange was officially opened by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Design Exchange has mounted hundreds of exhibitions, seminars, lectures, conferences and educational programs related to the role of design in culture, industry, and business. In 2017, DX launched a 10-day festival called Expo for Design, Innovation & Technology (EDIT), in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme.


Branding system and signage

The TD Centre represents one of the commercial real estate's most comprehensive branding systems. Sans Copperplate Gothic was Mies's signature font, as he believed it reflected the calmness and order of the architecture, and he decreed that it be used universally throughout the TD Centre. To this day, the font is used not just on exterior signs and wayfinding, but also for such communications as artwork captions, fire hose cases and designated smoking areas. Originally, the branding system extended to the stores in the underground shopping mall, such that all of the storefronts displayed their names in an identical font in white against black. However, in the late 1990s, under pressure from retail tenants seeking greater visibility, building management relaxed its requirements and allowed stores to customize their signage to their individual brands. This caused some controversy within the design and architecture community. There was further controversy in 2015 when TD Bank insisted on affixing its green-and-white logo atop two of the towers. Although these signs contravene Mies's strict minimalist vision, the city could not and did not officially oppose the move because the two towers in question were built after Mies's death and are not designated as historic.


Programs

The TD Centre often participates in the annual
Doors Open Toronto Doors Open Toronto is an annual event when approximately 150 buildings of architectural, historic, cultural, and social significance to the city of Toronto open their doors to the public for this free citywide event. Doors Open Toronto was devel ...
, providing visitors with behind-the-scenes access to various parts of the property. The 54th-floor executive office space is often showcased but, for 2019, the focus was the recently completed conference centre.


Environment

The TD Centre has developed one of the most comprehensive environmental programs in the Canadian real estate industry, “promoting sweeping sustainability initiatives across the complex.” In 2004, the TD Centre was one of the founding sponsors of the Enwave Deep Lake Cooling System, which significantly reduces the need for air conditioning during the summer months. In 2009, a living roof consisting of 11,000 grass plants was installed atop the 22,000 ft² banking pavilion through a partnership with TD Bank. The planter boxes maintain the 1.5m² grid pattern of the pavilion's ceiling below, allowing the roof to also give new life to Mies's original vision. The property has a waste diversion rate of 84%, almost double the industry average. It has reduced its annual carbon footprint by over 50%, from 12over 50,000 tCO2e in 2008 to 19,500 tCO2e in 2018. It has reduced irrigation water usage by 60% through a wireless Nano-Climate system. It was an early adopter of daytime cleaning, which led to reduced energy usage and improved quality of life for the complex's 180 cleaning staff. By 2015, all six towers were certified to LEED EB: O&M Platinum and BOMA BEST (three Gold, three Platinum). In 2017, the 222 Bay Street Tower received WELL gold-level certification, the first existing building in North America to do so. Also in 2017, the TD Centre was the first existing building in Canada to achieve Platinum under the Wired standard. The TD Centre has been publishing an annual sustainability report since 2013.


See also

*
Architecture of Toronto The architecture of Toronto is an eclectic combination of architectural styles, ranging from 19th century Georgian architecture to 21st century postmodern architecture and beyond. Initially, the city was on the periphery of the architectural w ...
*
List of tallest buildings in Canada This is a list of the tallest buildings in Canada. As of December 2017 there are a total of 133 completed and under construction buildings in Canada with an official height of or more. Greater Toronto has 86 (Toronto 83 (including the eight ta ...
* List of tallest buildings in the British Empire and the Commonwealth *
List of tallest buildings in Toronto Many of the tallest buildings in Toronto are also the tallest in all of Canada. The tallest structure in Toronto is the CN Tower, which rises . The CN Tower was the tallest free-standing structure on land from 1975 until 2007. However, it is no ...


References


External links

* Finding aids for th
Toronto-Dominion Bank Centre, Toronto (1962)
an
Toronto-Dominion Bank Building, Toronto (1962-1967)
projects
John C. Parkin fonds
Canadian Centre for Architecture The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA; french: Centre Canadien d'Architecture) is a museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 1920, rue Baile (1920, Baile Street), between rue Fort (Fort Street ...

Digitized photographs of the Toronto-Dominion Centre
by Peter MacCallum, George A. Tice and Giovanni Chiaramonte,
Canadian Centre for Architecture The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA; french: Centre Canadien d'Architecture) is a museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 1920, rue Baile (1920, Baile Street), between rue Fort (Fort Street ...
{{Authority control Toronto-Dominion Bank Ludwig Mies van der Rohe buildings Skyscrapers in Toronto PATH (Toronto) Office buildings completed in 1967 Office buildings completed in 1969 Office buildings completed in 1989 Office buildings completed in 1974 Office buildings completed in 1991 Modernist architecture in Canada Bank headquarters in Canada International style architecture in Canada 1967 establishments in Ontario Cadillac Fairview Skyscraper office buildings in Canada