I agree that when it comes to the forms our buildings take we're largely a city about fitting in, and expanding the existing context, rather than standing out against it. Our design culture isn't one that has relied on churning out and exporting endless high-fashion novelties. Indeed, for the most part we've been late adopters historically - Modernism, for instance, wasn't automatically taken up simply because Europeans built such new forms; there was quite a time lag, though we eventually took to it like a fish to water because it suited us. Rather, we absorb ideas, treat them with some justifiable suspicion, and go with what works. We're practical, and innovate when necessary for local conditions such as weather, availability of materials, construction methods tied to economic imperatives and the availability of a skilled labour force. But I think that cautious approach has also given us an identity that's our own - it isn't surprising that some visitors, after a week or two here, are puzzled by a Toronto Style that's obviously a different form of expression from what they're used to back home. Just as a visitor ( or a local! ) may not know a Clewes from a Diamond or a KPMB from a Teeple at first glance, when you look at early photographs of Georgian Toronto there's also a homogeneity of form - many of those buildings were likely built from British architectural pattern books adapted to local conditions. While the proportions of the windows conformed to Georgian models, the window pane glass was imported from Britain in sizes produced for the British market. And the red brick Victorian commercial city had a unity to it as well, though by then we were manufacturing a wide variety of materials ( brick, stained glass for decorative windows, wooden mouldings, cast metal etc ) used in the construction of buildings that weren't interchangeable with what was built in other countries.