Toronto-Dominion Centre | |
---|---|
General information | |
Type | Commercial offices |
Location | King and Bay Street |
Town or city | Toronto |
Country | Canada |
Coordinates | 43°38′52″N 79°22′51″W / 43.6479°N 79.3808°WCoordinates: 43°38′52″N 79°22′51″W / 43.6479°N 79.3808°W |
Construction started | 1964 |
Completed | 1969 |
Owner | Cadillac Fairview |
Management | Cadillac Fairview |
Height | |
Antenna spire | None |
Roof | 47 to 223 m (154 to 732 ft) |
Top floor | 56 |
Technical details | |
Floor count | 22 to 56 |
Lifts/elevators | TD Bank 32 and 2 freight; TD North 24 and 2 freight; TD West 10 and 2 freight; TD South 16 and 1 freight; Ernst and Young 32 and 1 freight; 95 Wellington 8 |
Design and construction | |
Architect | Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, John B. Parkin and Associates, Bregman + Hamann Architects |
Developer |
Cadillac Fairview Toronto Dominion Bank |
Main contractor | Pigott Construction |
References | |
Designated | 2003 |
The Toronto-Dominion Centre, or TD Centre, is a cluster of buildings in downtown Toronto, Ontario, owned by Cadillac Fairview. It has six towers and a pavilion covered in bronze-tinted glass and black painted steel. It serves as the global headquarters of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, and provides office and retail space for many other businesses. About 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. Phyllis Lambert recommended 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 between 1967 and 1991. An additional building was 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 under the Ontario Heritage Act in 2003 and received an Ontario Heritage Trust plaque in 2005.
As Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 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, which began with his 1957 Seagram Building in New York City.
As with the Seagram Building and a number of Mies's 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 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, 1.5 m2 (16 sq ft) grid.