An atrium is a strange neither-here-nor-there space, used mostly for waiting or coming and going, designed to let light into building interiors from skylights above. All over the city are wide-open interior landscapes that are worth exploring.

The Atrium on Bay, north of the Eaton Centre, is boring from the outside, only the name offers a hint that inside, there’s a series of interconnected atriums rising over a dozen floors up. Glass elevators and plants hanging over each floor as if vegetation is clinging to the ledge of a cliff, are common traits found in many atriums. With a slick 1981 style, the Atrium on Bay feels like the kind of office in which J.R. Ewing would have ruled his Dallas empire.

The atrium at Brookfield Place

On Front St. the building known as 33 Yonge St. has perhaps Toronto’s most unsung atrium. This one, too, is hidden in a plain glass box that belies a great indoor walk from Yonge to the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood. Across the street our greatest atrium runs through Brookfield Place from Yonge to Bay Sts. Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava , its steel arches supporting a rib cage of metal and glass give it the look of a transparent cathedral.

This row of great atriums along Front St. once continued west across Bay St. into the golden Royal Bank Plaza . However, an unfortunate renovation has drastically reduced public viewpoints of the thousands of aluminum rods hanging in its glorious atrium, a monumental artwork by the late artist Jesus Raphael Soto , but it can still be seen from the street.

Up at Mel Lastman Square is the North York Central Library branch and its six-storey atrium with zig-zagging staircase by Toronto architect Raymond Moriyama , our atrium-master with the Toronto Reference Library and the Scarborough Civic Centre also to his credit, both with cascading floors and those distinctive staircases that open up into spaces big enough to fit another building.

Perhaps the most interesting atriums are found in hospitals, as they tend to be places where people linger longer, often as patients out for a walk, or family members reluctant to either leave or go further inside. Toronto Western Hospital’s soaring atrium is an unexpectedly vast and open space in the close confines of the nearby Kensington market neighbourhood.

The atrium at Credit Valley Hospital

One of the most unusual atriums can be found at Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga — it’s a jungle of curving wood and plants. There hangs of photo from the early 1980s, showing Mayor Hazel McCallion turning the sod in front of the farm where the hospital was built. Salvaged wooden beams from the old barn and a weather vane from its roof are also on display. It’s always startling to realize just how recently Mississauga was a rural place.

The atrium at Sick Kids Hospital

Back in downtown Toronto, the atriums at Princess Margaret Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children were both designed by Toronto architect Eberhard Zeidler. They were done in vaguely similar styles, but Sick Kids stands out. It doesn’t have the most interesting building exterior, but inside you’ll find a wonderland of layers with thin metal railings, spiral staircases, and elevators. The design makes you feel as if you’re peering into a working machine that makes people better. There isn’t a building in Toronto that can bring you quicker to tears than Sick Kids, but there’s hope and relief too.

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In a fit of political bluster when he became Health Minister in the early 2000s, George Smitherman railed against what he called Taj Mahal hospitals “with glass atriums in the sky.” But when we’re sick, an atrium might be just the kind of space we need. Sick Kids is like a living Meccano building set that celebrates engineering and science and the things people can do to make each other better.

Shawn Micallef writes every Friday about where and how we live in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicalle

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