Toronto Public Library - Toronto Reference Library
Soaring five-storey atrium of plants and trickling water, built as an architect's answer to wartime internment.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Toronto Reference Library follows architect Raymond Moriyama from a childhood spent building a hidden treehouse at a Japanese Canadian internment camp during the Second World War, to the day the same government that interned his family came calling to hire him. It traces how that early act of building shaped this soaring five-storey atrium, filled with plants and trickling water, modeled on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Bata Shoe Museum
Deconstructivist building shaped like a tilted shoebox, housing thousands of shoes spanning forty five centuries.
Nathan Phillips Square
Sweeping civic plaza with a reflecting pool that becomes an ice rink, framed by curved modernist towers.
Allan Gardens Conservatory
Domed glasshouse of exotic palms, rebuilt after a fire and freshly restored under its glass dome.
Aga Khan Museum
Granite-and-glass museum devoted to Islamic art, designed around shifting patterns of natural light.
Toronto Old City Hall
Richardsonian Romanesque courthouse with a soaring clock tower and grotesque carved faces mocking its own city council.
Todmorden Mills Heritage Site
Riverside heritage complex of a former sawmill, brewery and paper mill beside a wildflower preserve.