Spirit Garden at Nathan Phillips Square brings Indigenous presence to Toronto’s symbolic core

The turtle rises from the water, poised to move toward the chamber of Toronto City Hall. This six-foot-tall limestone gesture of re-emergence is the centrepiece of the new Spirit Garden at Nathan Phillips Square, which brings an Indigenous presence to the city’s ceremonial heart.

At the garden’s centre sits the Teaching Lodge, a hybrid of longhouse and circular wigwam fashioned from glue-laminated ash. The structure invites local Indigenous communities to gather for ceremony and reflection. “It represents a cross-cultural approach to Indigenous design,” says Brian Porter of Two Row Architect. “How can one structure represent the traditions of peoples from across the continent?”