9. Ontario Place - 955 Lake Shore Blvd West

Ontario Place opened in 1971 and was this province's answer to Expo ’67 in Montreal. Designed by prolific Toronto architect Eberhard Zeidler and landscape architect Michael Hough, it's an important public space on Toronto's waterfront. Zeidler was born in Braunsdorf, Germany, in 1926 and studied architecture at the “Hochschule für Baukunst und bildende Künste” in Weimar, successor to the famed Bauhaus. He arrived in Canada in the 1950s and designed dozens of important local buildings, including the Eaton Centre, Sick Kids Hospital, and Queen’s Quay terminal.

Ontario Place was built on reclaimed land in Lake Ontario and includes the hulls of three lake freighters that serve as breakwalls along the south side. Though it’s undergone changes since opening, Zeidler’s most remarkable buildings are the Cinesphere theatre and the square pods suspended over water, all connected by catwalks. Designed in the “high tech” style, their exposed engineering gives them a look that still seems futuristic even half a century later and is a special place unlike any other in the country.