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Cities · North America · 43°39′N 79°23′W

Toronto

Canada's biggest collections, an architecture of crystals and curves, and a city that has made art a night out every October.

Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto · Public domain
Best monthsMay–October
Art calendarNuit Blanche (early October) · Art Toronto (autumn)
This guide4 essentials · 3 places off-piste
EssentialsOff-Piste in TorontoOne dayNearby

Essentials

Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto · Public domain
Museum · Grange Park

Art Gallery of Ontario

Frank Gehry, who grew up nearby, remade it in 2008 with a long wooden gallery on the street. The Group of Seven, and the largest public collection of Henry Moore.

Look for: The twisting wooden staircase in Walker Court.
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto · CC BY-SA 4.0
Museum · Bloor Street

Royal Ontario Museum

Natural history and world cultures, with Daniel Libeskind's aluminium-and-glass Crystal (2007) bursting out of the 1914 building.

Look for: The Crystal from across Bloor Street.
Aga Khan Museum, Toronto · CC BY-SA 4.0
Museum · Don Mills

Aga Khan Museum

Islamic arts from across a thousand years, in Fumihiko Maki's white building (2014), with gardens of reflecting pools.

Look for: The light in the central courtyard.
MOCA Toronto, Toronto · CC0
Museum · Junction Triangle

MOCA Toronto

The Museum of Contemporary Art, in a 1919 aluminium factory, the Tower Automotive Building, since 2018.

Look for: The view from the top floor.
Off the list

Off-Piste in Toronto

Rooms, ruins and curiosities: the city's other museum.

Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto · CC BY-SA 4.0
Unusual museum · Bloor Street

Bata Shoe Museum

Four thousand years of shoes, in a building by Raymond Moriyama (1995) shaped like a shoebox with its lid ajar.

The chestnut-crushing clogs.
Allan Gardens Conservatory, Toronto · CC BY 2.0
Garden · Garden District

Allan Gardens Conservatory

A domed Palm House of 1910 and a run of glasshouses, free and warm in winter.

The Palm House on a January afternoon.
Toronto Reference Library, Toronto · CC BY-SA 4.0
Architecture · Yonge Street

Toronto Reference Library

Raymond Moriyama's library (1977), five floors of terraces around a central atrium.

Look up from the ground floor.
Nearby

McMichael Canadian Art Collection

The Group of Seven in log and fieldstone buildings in the woods at Kleinburg, about 45 minutes north.

If you have one day

AGO at opening → lunch in Chinatown → the ROM → the Bata Shoe Museum → MOCA in the late afternoon.

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