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To imagine that the passing of the gilded age means the end of all things beautiful is to entertain tedious clichés. The hunger for stirring architecture will never go away and, yes, there will be much architectural splendour to feast on in 2009. Toronto will be treated to the last of the province's SuperBuild projects with the unveiling of the final stage of the redesigned, historically refurbished and expanded Royal Conservatory of Music. The walls of 19th-century stone and brickwork are still intact, though the atmosphere of Hogwarts has now been countered by light-filled promenades, civilized practice halls and public washrooms that sing the glories of minimalism and white Corian. The new Telus Centre for Performance and Learning reaches lovingly toward Philosopher's Walk, the only act of architectural grace to be accomplished, so far, along the University of Toronto's sacred spine. At last, after sporadic fits of construction spanning the last 17 years, the RCM will not only have accomplished jewel-like interventions by lead design architect Marianne McKenna and project architect Robert Sims of Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg, it is on schedule and booking artists to open its Sonja and Michael Koerner Concert Hall this fall.

For another kind of approach to the making of civic space, one that is icy-cerebral for its formal restraint, see the new Ottawa embassy and public reception hall of Prince Karim Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the world's 15 million Ismaili Muslims. Set on a black granite plinth above the off ramp of the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge and the uneven topography of a one-hectare Sussex Drive site, the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat has been designed by Japanese modernist Fumihiko Maki as a fortress of glass walls which would be soporific if it weren't for its multifaceted glass roof. At night, viewed from the river, the roof ignites the Ottawa skyline. Inside, though, the attempt is to disappear the materials (pale maple inlaid flooring, a veil of grey cast aluminum hanging within the main atrium space) so that the play of inner and outer courtyards becomes more visible. In keeping with the diffident Maki, a veil of fabric hangs below the rock-crystal roof, the better to disguise the audacity of spanning 40 tonnes of glass across a 25-metre space.

Watch also this year for the splendid waterfront and street design of the new Southeast False Creek neighbourhood and waterfront in front of Vancouver's Olympic Athletes Village. Designed by the Vancouver landscape architecture firm, PWL Partnership, there are wooden boardwalks cantilevered over the water, a pedestrian bridge in the shape of a kayak, groovy lounge seating and giant-sized, locally quarried granite steps that descend directly into the inlet. About 12,000 people will eventually live, after the 2010 Olympics, in a highly sustainable neighbourhood. Even the streets, open later this year, will feature channels cut down the centres of the street to capture rain water. Oh. I nearly forgot – does it rain in Vancouver?