Breathtaking landmark could soon transform University of Toronto campus

A new landmark is in the works for the University of Toronto, one which the institution is hailing as a "once-in-a-generation reinvestment in the heart of the St. George Campus."

The University plans to tear down a portion of the brutalist-style Temerty Faculty of Medicine  at the southeast corner of King's College Circle and King's College Rd., and replace a wing of the aging structure with a modern replacement boasting a design from internationally renowned architects.

Documents from the University's Planning & Budget Committee reveal that the existing medical building's west wing would be demolished to make way for the new James and Louise Temerty Building, described as "a new state-of-the-art facility for education and research that will help strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration with Arts & Science (A&S) and Temerty Medicine."

The east wing of the current building would live on and connect with the new 11-storey Temerty Building.

The planned addition aims to introduce "a highly visible, future-ready facility that supports research excellence, teaching innovation, student experience, and major institutional events for decades to come."

The new Temerty Building will replace aging laboratories dating back to the existing facility's 1969 construction with more flexible research spaces better suited to accommodate modern advances in medical science and technology, including new wet lab space for both the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Arts and Science's Department of Cell and Systems Biology.

The impressive design comes from acclaimed Netherlands-based architects MVRDV, working alongside local designers Diamond Schmitt Architects — a firm with an illustrious portfolio of work that has been somewhat overshadowed by its involvement in designing the controversial megaspa planned for Ontario Place.

Diamond Schmitt's fractured reputation aside, the proposal promises to add an impressive presence to U of T's front campus.