Mississauga
— — a city that grew up sideways.
Not only on a wall.
“Once a string of villages along the lake, now the seventh-largest city in Canada and still finding its centre. The Marilyn Monroe Towers turn on their axis above the highway. Port Credit holds the older bones — a lighthouse, a river mouth, sailboats. Most of the country passes through here without realising, since Pearson airport sits inside the city limits. from the studio
Mississauga, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Mississauga sits in Peel Region on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario, directly west of Toronto and inside the Greater Toronto Area. The 2021 census recorded 717,961 residents, making it Canada's seventh-largest city. The land was home to the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, who signed the Toronto Purchase of 1805. The modern city was amalgamated from earlier townships and villages in 1974 and grew under mayor Hazel McCallion, who held the office continuously from 1978 to 2014.
The visual signature is the Absolute World towers in the city centre, designed by MAD Architects of Beijing and completed in 2012. The taller tower rises 56 storeys and twists about 209 degrees from base to crown, earning the local name the Marilyn Monroe Building. Below the towers, Square One has grown into one of Canada's largest shopping centres. Toward the lake, Port Credit keeps its 1991 lighthouse replica and the mouth of the Credit River as the older quiet centre.
The Credit River runs roughly 90 kilometres from the Niagara Escarpment to Lake Ontario, exiting at Port Credit through a working harbour. The waterfront trail follows the lake edge for about 22 kilometres across the city, threading Marie Curtis Park, Lakefront Promenade, and Jack Darling. Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout run the river in spring and fall. The lakeshore in Mississauga reads quieter than Toronto's — wider parks, fewer towers right at the water, and the lighthouse still visible from the bridge.