Toronto's New City Hall was conceived through an international design competition initiated by Mayor Nathan Phillips in 1956. The design by Vilijo Revell (with assistance from Heikki Castren, Bengt Lundsten, and Seppo Valjus) was chosen by a panel of five judges including Eero Saarinen (the Finnish designer of the ubiquitous tulip chair) who bullied the other adjudicators into accepting the plan. The building was completed in 1965, a year after the architect's death, and has been causing controversy for its futuristic style ever since.
Walking into the lobby, you can't help but notice a massive stucco structure which is the "root" of the council chamber saucer-pod above. I can't help but be proud to live in a city with such an eccentric civic space ship. Gene Roddenberry and friends also admired the sci-fi quality of this building and incorporated it into an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the episode Contagion, you'll see Worf standing next to a vision of a possible future which happens to be our past heritage.
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