During the 1980s, the City of Mississauga saw a drastic evolution of the landscape, including Mississauga’s Civic Centre (City Hall), probably the City’s most iconic building. In April 1982, a national competition for the best design of Mississauga’s new Civic Centre and Civic Square was announced. The City was young, only being incorporated eight years prior in 1974. The Jury responsible for choosing the winning design had quite a challenge on their hands.

The Jury was led by architect George Baird, accompanied by other big names in the architecture world including Jerome Markson, Phyllis Lambert, Russell Edmunds, Douglas Kilner and James Stirling. In June 1982, architects from across the country received a brief describing the guidelines for the competition. “The decision to build a new City Hall follows a period of rapid growth during which a rural hinterland has been transformed into one of the fastest growing centers in Canada,” read the brief. The judges were conscious that the new City Hall would become the symbol for who we were as a fledgling City. But what was our voice?

At the time, the area around Burnhampthorpe and Hurontario was little more than farm fields with the Square One shopping centre and some commercial buildings scattered on the landscape. It was nearly a blank slate, yet with urbanization, our old way of life and agricultural roots were disappearing. Further, architecture in the 1980s was in “flux”, so it was really anyone’s guess what submissions the jurors would receive. By the end, they had received 246 entries from seven provinces. Architectural styles ranged from modern, to expressionist, rationalist, to postmodern, to name a few. Some were bizarre, some grandiose, others simple, and everything in between.

Some of the more interesting submissions include Entry #186 from John Emery Chamberlain Architect Limited of Medicine Hat, Alberta, which resembled a honeycomb structure. Entry #132 by Zygmunt J. Nowak of Mississauga resembled a glass pyramid, while submission #68 by Elie Bohjalian and Vlad Vit of Vancouver reminds one of an alien spaceship which has erected crop circles on the landscape. The whimsical theme continues with Entry #204, which is reminiscent of a castle or perhaps a fun house.

The Second-place submission by Barton Myers Associates was unified with an outer semi-circular curtain wall with an inner square courtyard, which was meant to differentiate the Civic Centre from surrounding commercial buildings. Likewise, the Third-place submission by Thom Partnership and Harvey Cowan also included square and circular elements. It featured a semi-enclosed square with a circular inner courtyard and reflecting pool. However, none held a candle in the eyes of the judges to the winning submission by architects Edward Jones and Michael Kirkland.

The architects believed that the design must stand out from other locales, particularly nearby Toronto, and demonstrate the City’s future while paying homage to its past. However, the predicament remained that in the early 1980s, Mississauga lacked character. They believed Mississauga was “featureless”, a collection of 19th century concession roads and disappearing farmsteads. How does one make “a somewhere in this nowhere”?

Well, the beginning of their thought process began many years prior. Both Jones and Kirkland were born outside Canada, Jones in England and Kirkland in the United States, but they were impressed by Ontario’s unique architecture. One summer while travelling between Toronto and Northern Ontario, Jones was struck by the ubiquity of the region’s vernacular architecture – the many farmhouses, silos, barns, and tree-lined drives. While most Ontarians would think of these views as mundane and unimportant, Jones and Kirkland’s view as outsiders made their wonder at the sites fresh. When they heard the proposed location of Mississauga’s new City Hall, the team began envisioning ideas long before the competition was even announced. When preparing their submission, they strongly believed that the City Hall must take inspiration from local architecture and history, a thought known as Regionalism.

Nobody can describe the design better than reviewer Trevor Boddy who wrote that the City Hall is an, “overscale and slightly racy version of a farmyard, the buildings given urban dress and compressed together, but maintaining memory of their rural roots”. The design features a South facing, long, low block with a sloping roof, which takes inspiration from a shed-roofed barn complete with mock barn doors and hayloft. The clock tower block represents a windmill, while the office block is a stand in for a farmhouse, and the cylindrical council chamber resembles a grain silo or water tower. The open-air square (now known as celebration square), reflecting pool, and garden is akin to a farmyard with trees lining the drive. The design’s inclusion of contrasting geometric shapes is a perfect example of Postmodern architecture which combines distinct structures into an asymmetrical composition. It is a true marvel of its era.

The jurors believed that Jones and Kirkland’s winning submission would go on to achieve international praise and recognition. Indeed, the Mississauga Civic Centre is considered one of the best examples in Canada of postmodern architecture, which the jurors were quite fond of. Groundbreaking on the site began on May 8, 1984 and in July of 1987, the Duke and Duchess of York officially opened the building to great fanfare. Love it or hate it, it was a product of its era and an homage to the history and future of our City – in other words, it was a look back to our future.

Wishing you could travel back and party like it’s the 1980’s? Well, you are in luck! Heritage Mississauga’s annual awards gala, The Credits, is themed on the idea of remembering the 1980s and looking “Back to Our Future” this year. For more information on The Credits, which take place on Thursday, November 3, 2022, please visit: https://heritagemississauga.com/the-credits/