First Canadian Place
For 50 years it was Canada's tallest building — until a fellow Toronto skyscraper finally beat it in June 2025.
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At 298 metres, this white-marble tower at King and Bay was designed by B+H Architects with Edward Durell Stone as design consultant, and is nearly a twin of Stone's Standard Oil Building in Chicago — same floor plan, same marble, completed just two years apart. It serves as the global operational headquarters of the Bank of Montreal, itself named for Canada's first bank. Half a century of skyline dominance in one address.
What to look for
- Horizontal window bands running across the facade — the only visible difference from Stone's Chicago twin, which runs its windows vertically
- The white marble exterior cladding, identical to the material used on the Standard Oil Building in Chicago
- The northwest corner of King and Bay Streets — the last of those four corners to be redeveloped, after a three-year lobbying battle to permit a skyscraper at all
Corner of King and Bay Streets in the Financial District; the exterior reads best from street level on the south or east side.
First Canadian Place is one of 19 sights worth the detour in Toronto, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Toronto pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Toronto
- CN TowerFor 32 years, a railway company's broadcast antenna was the tallest free-standing structure on Earth.
- BMO FieldThe 2007 soccer-specific stadium that grew into Toronto's outdoor dual-sport arena — and now holds 45,736 for the 2026 FIFA World Cup under the temporary name Toronto Stadium.
- Scotiabank ArenaA 1941 postal sorting depot on Bay Street that became Canada's busiest arena — and the most photographed spot in the country on Instagram.
- Royal Ontario MuseumCanada's largest museum packs 18 million objects — Cambrian sea creatures, East Asian art, and Art Deco clothing and design objects — into 40 galleries on Bloor Street.
- Rogers CentreThe world's first fully retractable motorized roof opened here in 1989 — and 70 hotel rooms still peer straight down onto the field.
- Art Gallery of OntarioFrank Gehry expanded the museum between 2004 and 2008; more than 120,000 works across six collecting areas fill the 45,000-square-metre result.