A parking lot turned into one of downtown's most photographed public spaces
Berczy Park
Redesigned in 2017 around a fountain covered in sculpted dogs of every breed, Berczy Park turned a modest downtown square into one of Toronto's most Instagrammed public spaces.
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Berczy Park sits in Toronto's St. Lawrence neighbourhood, named for William Berczy, a German-born artist and colonization agent who helped settle early German immigrants around York in the 1790s. The park existed for decades as a modest, largely unremarkable downtown green space before undergoing a major redesign, unveiled in 2017, led by landscape architecture firm Claude Cormier + Associés, the same studio behind Sugar Beach and HTO Park.
A fountain full of dogs
The redesign's centrepiece is a large fountain topped with bronze sculptures of 27 different dog breeds, plus one cat, water spraying from each dog's mouth in a design conceived as a playful nod to the neighbourhood's many pet owners. The fountain became an immediate social media sensation and tourist draw, transforming what had been an overlooked downtown square into one of Toronto's most photographed and visited small public spaces almost overnight.
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