The Toronto-Dominion Centre , or T-D Centre , is a cluster of buildings in downtown Toronto, Ontario, consisting of six towers and a pavilion covered in bronze-tinted glass and black painted steel, and serving as the global headquarters of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, as well as providing office and retail space for many other businesses. 21,000 people work in the complex, making it the largest in Canada.
The project was the inspiration of Allen Lambert, former President and Chairman of the Board of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, with Phyllis Lambert recommending Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 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 at different times between 1967 and 1991, with one additional building originally built outside the campus and purchased in 1998. Part of the complex, described by Philip Johnson as "the largest Mies in the world," was designated as an Ontario heritage site in 2005.
Design
As Ludwig Mies van der Rohe had been given "virtually a free hand to create the 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 the evolution of Mies' North American period, which began with his 1957 Seagram Building in New York City.
Site and governing order
As with that the Seagram Building, and a number of the Mies' subsequent projects, the Toronto-Dominion Centre follows the theme of the darkly coloured, rigidly ordered, steel and glass edifice set in an open plaza, itself surrounded by a dense and erratic, pre-existing urban fabric. The T-D 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, 1.5 m² (5 ft²) grid. Originally, three structures were conceived: a banking pavilion anchoring the site at the corner of King and Bay Streets, the main tower in the centre of the site, and another tower in the north west corner, each building 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 organise 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 both a formal plaza to the north (named Oscar Peterson Square in 2004), containing Al McWilliam's Bronze Arc , and an expanse of lawn to the south, featuring Joe Fafard's sculpture The Pasture ; these were the first examples of large-scale public outdoor spaces within the urban core of Toronto.
Phyllis Lambert wrote of the centre and the arrangement of its elements within the site:
Further structures were added over the ensuing decades, put up outside the periphery of the original site – as they were not part of Mies' master plan for the T-D Centre – but they are still located 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.
Towers
The height of each of Mies' two towers is proportioned to its width and depth, though they, as well as those based on his style, are of different heights. All, save for 95 Wellington Street West, are of a 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. 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-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 1.5 m by 2.7 m (5'-0" by 9'-0"), thereby conforming to the overall site template.
On the topmost accessible floor of the Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower was a large indoor observation platform, which, as the tower was the tallest in the city, once allowed uninterrupted views of the then quickly developing downtown core and of Lake Ontario to the south; this floor has since been converted to leased office space. One level below is a restaurant on the south side, and the Toronto-Dominion Bank corporate offices and boardroom on the north, the interiors of which were also designed by Mies, and included his signature broad planes of unadorned but rich wood panelling, freestanding cabinets as partitions, wood slab desks, and some of his furniture pieces, such as the Barcelona chair, Barcelona ottoman, and Brno chair. Within the main board room, at the northeast corner of the floor plate, service areas are concealed within the wood panelled walls behind secret panels.
Pavilion and shopping concourse
The banking pavilion is a double height structure, 15 modules (22.9 m or 75'-0") square, that houses the main branch of the Toronto-Dominion Bank 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' palette – marble, English oak, and granite. The roof of the building is comprised 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 a further development on the post office pavilion of the Federal Center in Chicago, which has less expressed columns and a second level balcony, and a precursor to the Neue Nationalgalerie completed in Berlin in 1968, which had a similar roof supported on only eight large steel columns. The T-D Centre pavilion was described by the The Globe and Mail newspaper as "among the best spaces Mies ever made."
Incorporated into the lower levels of the project is a large underground shopping mall, fitted in the same black aluminum and travertine as the main lobbies above, which was the genesis of Toronto's PATH system. Also extending to this area was Mies' strict design sense; to maintain the clean-lined and ordered aesthetic of the environment, Mies stipulated, with the backing of both Phyllis and Alan Lambert, that the store fronts must consist only of the glass panels and black aluminum that he specified. Even signage graphics were restricted to only white backlit letters within a black aluminum panel, and only in the specific font that Mies had designed for the T-D Centre. A 690-seat Famous Players movie theatre was originally included within this underground mall, but, though the space still exists, it was closed in 1978 due to redundancy after newer theatres opened throughout the city.
Building statistics
History
Origins
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 Fairview Corporation (now Cadillac Fairview) in order to build a new headquarters for the Toronto-Dominion Bank; 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 one, with the bank having the final say on the design of the complex, and Phyllis Lambert – sister-in-law to Allen Lambert, and a member of the Bronfman family – was called in as an advisor on the T-D Centre competition. Gordon Bunshaft, then chief designer of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, was originally 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, seeing it as too radical, and 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 departure left John Parkin, the local architect who would have worked with t
Office of Space Management, University of Toronto
The Office of Space Management has jurisdiction over more than 200 classrooms at the St. George Campus of the University of Toronto. These classrooms, interspersed with department ...
Toronto Office Space, Toronto Serviced Offices - Telsec.net
Toronto Office Space, Toronto Serviced Offices - This high tech executive office space offers all the services included under Plan #1, plus it's a comfortable environment for 2 to ...
124 Merton St Office Space for Lease in Toronto
Beautifully designed boutique office tower located just steps to Yonge St. & Davisville subway station. A beautiful lobby filled with orchids, classical music and hand laid ...
Toronto Shared Offices, Shared Office Space Toronto - Telsec.net
Toronto Shared Offices, Shared Office Space Toronto - View a selection of shared office plans and semi private office space we have available in Toronto.
Aldgate's Office Space Listings
office commercial rental space listings, The Aldgate Group,Toronto, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada
Therapy Office Space for rent
The Toronto Healing Arts Centre is a large gathering of holistic practitioners who independently run their own practices.
Office Space in Toronto, Mississauga, Markham, and GTA for Lease, Rent ...
To find office space for sale, lease or rent in Toronto, Mississauga, Markham, and GTA, Ontario. Canada, call 416-674-7900 ext. 6237 or visit GTACommercialRealEstate.com today!
Office Space in Toronto, Canada - Executive Suites & Rentals - Search ...
Find Office Space in Toronto and Executive Suites throughout Canada (Canada) with SOS. Helping businesses find the cheapest and most flexible Office Rental deals, Search Office ...
Toronto office space for rent, Toronto property and business for sale
Visit Kijiji's housing >commercial category for office spaces and other commercial real estate available in Toronto. Kijiji offers free, local classifieds in Canada.
Toronto commercial real estate & office space - Free Toronto ...
Visit Kijiji's housing >commercial category for office spaces and other commercial real estate available in Toronto. Kijiji offers free, local classifieds in Canada.