Completed in two phases during the early 1980s, Market Square condominiums provide the historic St Lawrence area with a touch of Haussmann’s 19th century Paris that deserves to be more widely emulated in Toronto. The project’s overall density may be high (0.5 times the lot area is commercial, 4.5 times the lot area is residential), but a street-friendly, nine-storey height and a courtyard configuration define adjacent streets, lanes, and pedestrian ways with a solid perimeter of built form.

The complex includes: stores and restaurants on the first floor; six movie theatres and a commercial parking structure below grade; continuous commercial colonnades; and a mid-block pedestrian route that is strategically situated on the axis of one of Toronto’s finest historic landmarks, St James’ Cathedral. There are also generous bay windows on the upper floors that provide apartments with diagonal views up and down the street, and these, along with a roofscape of fireplace chimneys, outdoor terraces, and garret windows, create a residential imagery that is enhanced by the application of multi-coloured brick.

Market Square is the home of several designers and architects partly due to its highly urbanized context, and partly because of its columnar structure that makes for easy suite renovation. As well, eighth floor suites have high ceilings and roof terraces commanding panoramic views of Toronto’s skyline. A swimming pool with adjacent communal roof terrace is reserved on the ninth floor for the use of all residents.

Market Square was featured as an urban prototype in a study by the author titled “Shifting Gears for Fewer Gearshifts,” sponsored by the Design Exchange. The study superimposed Market Square on five theoretical sites within Toronto’s commercial core to demonstrate that the city’s commercial and civic plazas (including Nathan Phillips Square), public streets, and underground PATH system have a tremendous ability to absorb more, high-density, low-rise, residential accommodation.

Paul Reuber