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On Yonge Street, a Glass Tower Rises From a Neoclassical Bank

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The heritage building’s original mosaic floor will be restored in the condo tower’s lobby

The philanthropic Massey family, responsible for such landmarks as Massey Hall and Hart House, is part of Toronto’s past and present. It’s fitting, then, that the Massey Tower embodies both. A century-old bank anchors the condo development to Yonge Street, while an undulating glass tower by Hariri Pontarini Architects soars 60 storeys above. There’s no facadism here: heritage experts ERA Architects are preserving and restoring the neoclassical building, including its delicate mosaic floor and original woodwork. themasseytower.com

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And a win for children in the war against fun

To write about urbanism in Toronto is to live in a constant state of disappointment. It’s not that good things never happen here. It’s just that, too often, our big-ticket urban projects fail to live up to the hype. We get promised a radical new addition to the public realm—a bold initiative to reimagine civic life—and we end up with a condo complex or an outdoor mall. A starchitect gets hired to re-design our most storied museum, and he makes such a hash of things that, fifteen years later, we find ourselves paying to undo his work.

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