The Middlesex County Courthouse on Dundas Street has been a fixture of downtown London since the 1970s, and depending on who you ask, it’s either the most compelling building in the core or a concrete catastrophe that nobody asked for. A photo posted to r/londonontario recently reignited that debate, and the responses landed hard on both sides.
The building is a textbook example of Brutalist architecture: raw concrete, narrow windows, an imposing mass that doesn’t apologize for itself. One person described it as a “big friggin dead tooth in the middle of the skyline.” The loathing, in some cases, runs deep.
But the building has its defenders, and they’re not shy. Someone put it plainly:
“Dead tooth is a good line, but I’ll still take unapologetic Brutalism over another interchangeable glass box. At least Weldon has a point of view.”
That tension, between Brutalism as a bold architectural statement and Brutalism as a depressing Soviet-adjacent mistake, is the whole argument. One person described the style’s intent this way: “It strips away decoration, exposes the raw materials and structure, and uses scale and mass to make you feel the building physically. At its best, it creates awe, permanence, and a sense that the space is bigger than you.”
There’s some genuine history baked into the building that most people walking past don’t know. Someone who worked there noted the courthouse once had climbing vines on the exterior, which softened the concrete considerably. The vines are gone now, and at least one person misses them. Inside, the courtrooms are apparently wood-panelled, which one former visitor described as feeling “like a chamber where it was OK to talk or whisper or yell.”
The sculpture out front has also confused people for decades. Those rounded shapes that look like oversized couch cushions on pedestals are actually a 1974 work called Xabis by Canadian artist Walter Redinger, made from fibreglass and intended as organic, almost anthropomorphic forms. Someone noted the contrast: “these soft, rounded, almost fleshy shapes sitting in front of a massive” concrete wall is very much the point.
One person who did a co-op there as an IT specialist described the experience as never dull, given the press on big hearings and the general unpredictability of a working courthouse. They also confirmed: “the building is as depressing from inside as outside.” Someone else brought up a structural note, that the government has reportedly spent significant money over the years correcting issues with the original design, including a window that was replaced by a plywood panel with a ventilation hole cut into it for an extended period.
The courthouse also gets compared to other downtown buildings, usually unfavourably on aesthetics but favourably on character. The Dominion Building gets mentioned as the more beautiful option, but several people acknowledged the courthouse has a dominance in the skyline that nothing nearby quite matches.
Whether that dominance reads as presence or punishment probably says something about your relationship with the justice system, the architectural era, or just how much concrete you can tolerate on a Tuesday morning walk down Dundas.
The courthouse sits on Dundas in downtown London. It’s hard to miss, which is, depending on your taste, either the whole problem or the whole point.