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London City Hall, front, London, Ont. Designed by award-winning, local architect Philip Carter Johnson (1913-1976), the soaring 12-storey, white-marble building with a distinctive, ‘floating’ black-granite pod and splashes of colour via glazed brick at the base projects cool confidence and a forward-looking attitude.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail

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London City Hall, rear. London, Ont. Despite its Modernist credentials, ‘people hate it; I don’t know why,” says local architecture enthusiast Sandra Miller. ‘One of the councillors called it a ‘sow’s ear.’ Likely it’s the general hate-on for the Modernist period (roughly 1945-1975), which many perceive as cold or uninteresting.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail

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Precast concrete on the 1963 Toronto Dominion Bank at the corner of Richmond and King streets in London, Ont. by Toronto architect Bruce Etherington. Mr. Etherington’s firm designed approximately 900 banks for TD.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail

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Etherington-designed TD bank, London, Ont.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail

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The 1958 Bank of Montreal building, London, Ont., one of the stops on the Jane’s Walk on Sunday, May 4, at 1 p.m., to be guided by Ms. Miller. The broad-shouldered building at the corner of Dundas and Wellington streets was designed by local firm O. Roy Moore.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail

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‘This is our Modernist jewel,’ says Ms. Miller of the 1957 Crown Trust building at 200 Queens Ave. Architect Peter Tillmann clad the curtain wall in striking turquoise panels.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail

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The 1927 Beaux-Arts London Life Insurance underwent a highly compatible 1964 addition by Toronto’s Marani, Morris & Allan.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail

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London’s only confirmed Uno Prii-designed building, a hotel/apartment complex known as the Jack Tar Building at 186 King St. Originally planned as a Sheraton hotel for 1961, the building finally opened as an office building with apartment units in 1964, and then went through various incarnations – the Park Lane Motel, a Ramada Inn and a student residence.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail

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Librarian and architecture enthusiast Sandra Miller outside Museum London.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail

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