We hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far, and getting out to explore the many events, attractions, and exhibits your community has to offer. Here in Toronto, we are fortunate to have many public galleries to visit, and on this #MuseumMonday we wish to highlight the Bata Shoe Museum, completed by Moriyama Teshima Architects in 1995.

The design of this building, located on Bloor Street, was inspired by the challenge of ‘how to show a shoe’, and was formed through a playful interpretation of the shoe box. With its canted walls and its copper-clad roof offset from the building’s lateral faces below, the museum expresses an interesting play of volume and void. The entire stone form appears to float above a ribbon of glass display-windows on street level, and its vast expanse of limestone glows in the late afternoon sunlight.