Top 10 Favourite Toronto Rooms

[jn_12]

One of the common picks on this thread for beautiful interior spaces is Calatrava's design for the atrium at Brookfield Place--often called a modern secular cathedral. There's nothing wrong with beautiful spaces designed for worship, even for an agnostic like me--but the truly amazing are often either several centuries old (e.g. Chartres Cathedral) or architecturally original works in their own right (e.g. Wright's Unity Temple). Most of our churches here are lovely, and they certainly are historic, but most are not outstanding architecture.

Frankly, I see a place for appreciation of both types (architectural gems and historical gems) and sometimes they even intersect. Metropolitan United is a beautiful space, although nothing revolutionary as architecture.

If only "revolutionary" architecture is worth being celebrated then we might as well delete this thread and toss out heritage preservation as a whole, especially in a rather new city like Toronto. I would argue (and have in my masters thesis) that age and architectural significance has little to do with anything. Sure, you can marvel at how something like Westminster Abbey was built hundreds of years ago in a time when they had very little technology to work with, or you can marvel at the history that lies within it, but that doesn't diminish the quality of the artistry, craftsmanship and history found in our own buildings.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Most probably wouldn't call it a room, but in the spirit of the recent discussion about inspirational spaces and ecclesiastical interiors I'd like to draw attention to Ernest Cormier's elevator tower - with staircase wrapping around it - at his Carr Hall, St. Michael's College, built in 1955. Here's an architect who has plucked a mundane, utilitarian function and wrought something new out of it which expresses the religious roots of the institution more effectively than the greater rectilinear mass that it's attached to does - a sort of tail-wagging-the-dog scenario. If that isn't the result of inspiration I don't know what is:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Carr_Hall.JPG