More than any building in town, it is City Hall that defines Toronto. Fifty years after it opened, the unique structure remains a powerful symbol of civic optimism and confidence, more compelling now perhaps than ever.

Its unveiling in September 1965 marked Toronto’s entry into the modern world. Sloughing off the muddy cloak of colonialism, the city declared its desire to be a player on the international stage, to be taken seriously.

But as Ryerson University architecture professor George Kapelos and historian Christopher Armstrong make clear in an exhibition that opens Tuesday, designing and constructing Toronto City Hall was as crucial to this process as the building itself.

By the time an international architectural competition was launched in 1957, it was clear Torontonians wanted more than what local practitioners were offering. The show includes drawings of a scheme prepared by a consortium of Toronto firms. Boxy, plain and dull, it was a plan that looked to the past. It could have been head office of an insurance company.

The competition, which attracted more than 500 submissions from 42 countries, some as far away as Africa and Australia, became one of the most celebrated ever held, up there with the Chicago Tribune and the Sydney Opera House.

“The competition was incredibly important,” says Kapelos, “for Toronto, for Canada and the world. It wasn’t just about Toronto, but a convergence of a whole lot of issues that catalyzed here in this city. People were agitating for newness and modernity. Around the globe, interest in rebuilding cities was intense. Issues such as decolonization, monumentality and national identity were on everyone’s mind. The timing was amazing.”

In Canada, the Massey Commission was appointed to examine the state of the “arts, letters and the sciences.” Its report, delivered in 1951, recommended public funding for a range of cultural activity. The postwar euphoria about the country’s future was in full sway; artists, architects and scientists would lead the way.

Today, of course, these are the very programs governments are anxious to drop. As for Canadian identity, that’s more contested than ever.

Indeed, one can’t help but wonder whether anything like City Hall could be built now. The unabashed faith in democracy, the sense of community and civic pride it expresses have no place in an age of disgruntlement.

The winning designer, Finnish architect Viljo Revell, spoke the language of modernism but with a humanist, even romantic, accent. The rigidity of the right angle, the grid of “rationality,” give way to sweeping curves and a sense of welcome.

The competition, for a public square as well as a building, emphasized the civic nature of the project. It was intended, documents made clear, for the “pleasure and enjoyment” of citizens. It brought a new level of commitment to the public realm. Nathan Phillips Square is still Toronto’s pre-eminent civic plaza and its finest public space.

“There was a yearning for public places people could proud of,” Kapelos argues. “The competition became a vehicle for expressing a vision of the future; the square was as important as the building. It was a place to be free.”

The exhibition includes exquisite student-made models of the seven other finalists. These proposals, however polished, simply adapted modernist conventions to a civic context. By contrast, Revell gave new form to city hall that was contemporary but which evoked ancient ideals of freedom and democracy.

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“Competitions,” says Kapelos, “create innovation while reflecting the zeitgeist of the time.” Though true, the genius of Toronto City Hall lies in its ability to transcend all that and remain fresh.

The exhibition, Shaping Canadian Modernity, will be on display at the Paul Cocker Gallery, 325 Church St., from Sept. 1 to Oct. 9.