8. TD Centre - 55 King Street West

The most direct Bauhaus connection in Toronto is the TD Centre, as it was designed by the third and last director of the school, architect Mies van der Rohe. He guided the school in its final years, trying to depoliticize it, but was ultimately driven to North America by Nazi politics, where he became arguably the most successful Bauhaus architect and one of the most famous architects in the world.

The TD Centre was one of his last projects before his death in 1969 and is typical of the International Style he pioneered with clean and angular lines. True to the Bauhaus ethos, this style rejected nationalistic symbols and ornament, yet if you walk up to one of the buildings here you’ll see visible I-beams, a Mies trademark and celebration of the building structure.

Below ground are a network of tunnels that connect to adjacent buildings, part of Toronto’s PATH system of shops and restaurants. The TD Centre’s section of the PATH was always unique, designed almost mausoleum-like, clean and orderly, an echo of that Bauhaus response to World War I. Mies also designed a uniform white-on-black typeface for every commercial space, so there was a uniformity, though the building owner allowed vernacular signage to be installed by each store, so there is very little of that left today.