A Decade In The Works, The Famed Architect’s Majestic Towers Will Tip The Scales For Toronto

For years Toronto has been waiting for something special, something monumental to add to its skyline. Tower after tower goes up, but how many of them really impact our collective conscious? Frank Gehry’s Forma Condos are poised to be the tipping point.

It’s been 12 years since the two towers were first announced. The gleaming, stainless-steel clad residential buildings will be Gehry’s tallest yet at 73 and 84 storeys, altering the skyline forever. “It’s a homecoming,” he tells me when we spoke in June. “I didn’t plan a homecoming this big. I would have been more modest,” he says with a smile. The project is getting off the ground now with the first tower scheduled for completion in 2028. “I just bought an apartment today. I’m not sure I’ll be here to see it,” says the 93-year-old architect. The Pritzker-award-winner’s career needs little to no introduction with acclaimed and city-altering buildings around the world, including the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Closer to home, his curvaceous addition to the Art Gallery of Ontario back in 2008 was a welcome change to the city’s Dundas Street institution just steps from his childhood home.

Though Gehry left Toronto at 18, it seems much of his heart is still here. When he talks about the city, it’s with a wistful eye. It’s a changed place with cranes visible at every turn, so it’s no wonder he found the rapid growth of the waterfront skyline “scary” when he drove in from the airport, he tells me raising his hands up with an “ahh” adding “I guess they’ll figure it out.” He can only mean the seemingly endless glass-clad condo towers that don’t seem to connect visually or physically. “I was shocked going along into the city, but then again, City Hall was a shock at one point,” he says referring to architect Viljo Revell’s 1965 now widely beloved curved buildings.

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For more information about Forma, visit formatoronto.com