City Maker

Can a single building make a city? Perhaps for Toronto it is true. Christopher Armstrong, in Civic Symbol: Creating Toronto’s New City Hall 1952–1966, provides the evidence that the creation of New City Hall was the moment modern Toronto was born. He tells a fascinating story of how the Toronto of the 1950s—a reliably dull provincial city of no importance lost in the middle of a secondary country—transformed itself into a global metropolis, a city that even those who might cringe at the phrase “world class” must acknowledge is now lodged in the top dozen most important cities in the world. His book makes a strong case that 50 years ago the extended civic drama that culminated in Viljo Revell’s masterpiece was Toronto’s pivotal moment. How did it happen?

A few writers and fewer academics have tried to chart that rise. Robert Fulford comes closest, with a great book, Accidental City: The Transformation of Toronto, based on the thesis that the city’s rise...