Toronto’s City Hall, designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell, celebrated it’s birthday this past weekend. Sunday marked the iconic building’s 50th anniversary, and the City celebrated with a full day of events at Nathan Phillip’s Square.

Toronto Public Library is also marking the milestone with a series of talks. On Thursday, September 24, at 7:00pm former Dean and Professor Emeritus George Baird will deliver a lecture on the “urban design aspects of Revell’s winning design.”

“Urban design had hardly been born" at the time that City Hall was built, Baird told Globe and Mail Architecture Critic Alex Bozikovic, who published an article on the building’s anniversary this past weekend. “That period of modern architecture was so uninterested in the contextual position of a building in a  city.” Despite this, he argues that the public space that was built alongside the hall — Nathan Phillips Square — “works very well psychologically.”

Baird’s lecture will be held inside City Hall’s Council Chambers.

The evening before, on Wednesday, September 23, the Toronto Reference Library is hosting a panel of architects who will debate the merits of the finalists in the international competition that was held to select the design for Toronto City Hall in the 1950s. A number of Daniels Faculty alumni are participating, including Tania Bortolotto (BArch 1993), Don Schmitt (BArch 1977), Shirley Blumberg (BArch 1976). The “Battle of the Architects” starts at 7:00pm in the Reference Library’s Atrium.

Related:

• From the archives—1955: U of T architecture students and the proposal for New City Hall
• VIDEO: Reimagining the Faculty, featuring Larry Wayne Richards, George Baird, and Richard Sommer — Moderated by Bruce Kuwabara