The Globe and Mail

Though Toronto is well into a burst of tall residential building downtown, we've not yet settled on a skyscraper style to match our town's ambitions. But there are candidates. A leading contender I'm seeing around town these days is a kind of art deco revival. The creators of this style have looked at apartment blocks put up circa 1930 in other North American cities (notably New York), and liked what they've seen -- rounded corners and shoulders, parallel speed lines and other streamlined surface treatments, a certain comfortable, conservative chic. In updating the style to the early 21st century, the designers have applied these deco decorative elements to standard steel-frame high-rise boxes, with largely unhappy effect. If you want to see what I'm talking about, take a stroll around the busy intersection of Bay and College streets.