Toronto Vs Montreal: Skyline edition

When I first moved to Toronto, the first thing to hit me was the overwhelming number of impressive skyscrapers. Although there is a cluster of massive financial buildings downtown, there are also hundreds of towering condo buildings throughout the rest of the city. Sure big buildings block the sun and create mysterious wind tunnels that make cold days even colder, but I do enjoy a good skyline.

The skyline is a good indicator of a city's status. Montreal has Place Ville Marie and... Well there aren't very many that go beyond 25 floors. This is quite telling of Montreal's economic stagnation. All of our skyscrapers are quite old and there have not been any projects affecting the skyline since 1980. Montreal has not degraded economically in the last 3 decades per se however nobody is pumping money into the city. This is most likely a consequence of the rise of the sovereignty movement culminating in the 1980 referendum. This caused several companies to move their headquarters to the more stable city of Toronto. Toronto got the “big boy” status and the big buildings...

Although skyscrapers are impressive at first glance, they tend to ruin the city at the street level. Skyscrapers generally have a spacious lobby and elevators on the ground floor. This reduces the amount of restaurants, shops and bars that pedestrians can access. This unfortunate side effect saps the charm and practicality away from clusters of skyscrapers.

I have noticed something else in the last year: Toronto city planners have terrible taste in architecture. If the buildings are impressive in size, they rarely are in their design. Everything Toronto has built since their expansion in the 70's is quite awful. The city hall is supposed to be designed like an eye (top picture)... it might look good from a hot air balloon, not from the ground. The back of city hall is brown cement! More recently, the royal Ontario museum reopened on Bloor Street which is supposed to be avant-garde/crystal-like, but it just looks like it's been chewed up and spit out by Godzilla (bottom picture).

Montreal is a much older city, so the oldest buildings really give the city its charm. This is true for most cities I’ve visited: the older the city, the more charming it is. However, having travelled to cities such as Lisbon, Porto and Chicago it has become clear that new buildings can also have style. Therefore if anybody reading this is a struggling architect... please come to Toronto, the city needs you.