A 12m x 12m Maple Leaf sculpture of chairs from the former hockey arena Maple Leaf Gardens, was sculpted into a blue maple leaf. The sculpture is part of the Loblaws grocery store that opened in 2011 at the former hockey arena.

Maple Leaf Garden was always a place of entertainment hosting major sporting, political and cultural events, from the beloved Maple Leaf hockey team and Muhamad Ali, to music such as the Beatles and Frank Sinatra. Architects Landini Associates utilized the visual scale and brutality of the building combined with a very urban palette of materials to create theatre, energy and colour.

They chose to celebrate the building’s history through an integrated design approach and achieved this by making these specifications a dynamic part of the overall design – exposing the “ghosts” of walls past, commissioning the sculpture of old stadium chairs as well as reusing stadium lighting, murals and much more.