Toronto Interiors: Modern Residential Design

A survey of the leading interior designers and architects who are collectively defining the city’s signature style.

As perhaps the most diverse city in the world, Toronto is a veritable patchwork of cultures, styles, languages, and neighbourhoods—each with its own distinct architecture. With heritage rowhouses in Cabbagetown, glass towers overlooking Lake Ontario, narrow Victorian Bay-and-Gables in the Annex, grand Georgians in Rosedale, and wartime bungalows on the edges of the city, there truly is something for everyone. The interiors of these distinct home styles are no less unique, but, when taken together they exemplify the push and pull between heritage and modern sensibilities that has created a true design movement in this city on the lake.

In Toronto Interiors, design writer Catherine MacIntosh profiles 30 established and emerging local studios that are evolving the living spaces and streetscapes for the next generation of Torontonians. Whether bringing their talents to innovative renovations or new builds, these studios are crafting homes that are beautiful but not precious; homes that are made for how we live now. Within these deeply personal and highly functional spaces are moments of true creative brilliance—the artistic use of light, the seamless interplay between indoors and out, unique focal points, a careful mix of natural materials, and a delicate balance between old and new. The exemplary homes in Toronto Interiors feel at ease in their settings, adding to the city’s unique urban landscape.

Toronto Interiors spotlights a moment in time when high design and individuality are expertly applied by designers challenging the status quo, inspiring readers to look at their own spaces through a new lens. Featuring 90 projects brought to life in stunning full-colour photography, Toronto Interiors is a book to both read and dream on.

Catherine MacIntosh is a Toronto-based editor and writer with more than twenty-five years covering interior design, art, and architecture. She has profiled top studios working in residential, commercial, and urban design as editor-in-chief of Designlines magazine and as senior editor at esteemed publications, including House & Home and Azure. Through her work, she always strives to highlight the people behind each project.

Paolo Ferrari is a Toronto-based interior designer whose practice, Studio Paolo Ferrari, works at the cutting edge of international design with prestige and emerging luxury brands or through private commissions on hospitality, retail, and residential projects. A distinctive, vision-forward approach has defined Ferrari’s output as he continues to collaborate with industry-leading clients all over the world, including luxury heavyweights Accor, Raffles, St. Regis, 1 Hotels, Four Seasons & LVMH.