Structures like the CN Tower, City Hall and the Rogers Centre remain Toronto's best-known landmarks, but some of the city's most avant-garde architectural statements can be found on the block of Dundas Street West between McCaul and Beverley streets.

One of Toronto's most striking blocks, home to the Frank Gehry-designed Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) expansion and OCAD University's pixelated and stilt-supported Sharp Centre for Design from the late British architect Will Alsop, is set to grow with new additions planned for these two institutions.

OCAD U has been planning an expansion to its presence on the block since 2017, and a design for a new building to rise above the laneway north of the Sharp Centre was revealed in 2020.

The proposed nine-storey, 55,000 square-foot expansion features a design from L.A.'s Morphosis, working with Toronto-based Teeple Architects and Indigenous-owned firm Two Row Architect, one that has continued to evolve since its debut a few years ago.

Since the new OCAD U building at 100 McCaul was proposed, the neighbouring AGO announced its own expansion plans in 2023.

The AGO is expanding in a big way with money from Canada Goose https://t.co/nyqVHsGPKH #Toronto #AGO

— blogTO (@blogTO) March 2, 2023

The planned Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery plans to add even more architectural creativity to the block in the coming years, featuring a design from local firm Diamond Schmitt, New York-based Selldorf Architects, and Two Row Architect.

The 40,000-square-foot addition, named in honour of a $35 million donation from Canada Goose chairman and CEO Dani Reiss, will introduce five new floors of cultural space to the AGO.

View of the two expansions facing northeast from Grange Park.

In mid-2023, the planning file associated with the new gallery addition was updated with additional renderings that reveal the two additions together, while also hinting at updates to the design of the OCAD facility.

A letter submitted to the City by planners representing the AGO states that "The relationship between the proposed AGO addition and the adjacent OCAD property and potential future OCAD addition has been studied in detail."

View of the proposed OCAD expansion and a portion of the AGO expansion.

In response to potential conflicts with the OCAD addition brought up by City planners, the current plan for the Dani Reiss Modern has introduced "design adjustments that will allow the windows to be modified or moved in the future should a future OCAD addition be constructed," and removed structural, electrical, or mechanical elements from the conflict area.

Most recently, the AGO proposal was awarded an investment of $25 million from the federal government to support its goal of meeting net-zero carbon operating standards.

Together, the two new builds will continue the block's growth with ambitious yet still somewhat restrained designs that do their best to defer to the established landmarks on site.