Brookfield Place opened as BCE Place in 1992, breaking a Toronto habit: it built its tower straight out to the street, rather than set back behind an empty plaza as fashion once dictated. Inside is the payoff, the Allen Lambert Galleria, a six storey glass atrium by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, its steel ribs curving overhead like a forest canopy.

Halfway along stands something older: the stone facade of the Commercial Bank of the Midland District, built in 1845 in the Greek Revival style. When developers demolished its original home on Wellington Street, they dismantled the facade stone by stone and rebuilt it here, inside the glass.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use Brookfield Place to trace Toronto's shift from cautious plazas to confident street walls, and to show how the financial district keeps its older buildings even while it rebuilds around them.