Casino Hotels

The complex occupies pavilions built for Expo 67 on Île Notre-Dame. The former French pavilion, with its angled aluminium fins, carries most of the building, and the Québec pavilion stands beside it. Inside, the floors are stacked over several levels around open voids, which is not how a building of this use is usually planned. Water surrounds the island, and central Montréal is a short metro and bus ride across the river.

Hotel rooms, restaurants and event spaces sit within the same complex, and the restaurant list includes fine dining rooms. A live programme runs through the year in the performance spaces. The island itself holds the rowing basin, the Gilles Villeneuve circuit and parkland, so the surroundings are green and open rather than built up. Of the four Canadian entries, this is the one where the architecture came first, decades before the current use.

Fallsview opened in the early 2000s on the escarpment above the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara Falls, Ontario. The building is set into the slope, so the entrance and the main floors sit at different heights of the hill. Windows on the public levels look out over the gorge and the falls. The resort forms part of the built-up strip on the Canadian side, with the parkland along the river a walk downhill.

Inside there is a theatre that brings in touring names, a spa, a hotel tower and restaurants facing the water. The scale is large and the resort is built for guests who arrive and stay inside for a day or two. Toronto is about ninety minutes away by road, and the border crossing into New York State is close. Of the four entries in this section, this is the one organised most completely around a single view.

River Rock sits on the middle arm of the Fraser River in Richmond, between Vancouver and the international airport. The Canada Line stops at the property, so it can be reached from downtown Vancouver or the terminal without a car. A marina on the river takes visiting boats, and floatplanes use the water nearby. The buildings run along the bank, with the hotel towers set back from the water's edge.

A theatre inside the resort runs concerts and touring shows through the year, and there is a spa and a spread of restaurants across the site. Richmond's Golden Village and its summer night market are a short ride away. Among the four entries here, this is the only one you can reach on a train from the airport in about twenty minutes. River traffic and the flight path are both part of the setting.

Casino Rama stands on the lands of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation, near Orillia and beside Lake Couchiching. Toronto is about ninety minutes to the south. The resort sits in open ground rather than a street grid, with the lake on one side and woodland and golf around it. The buildings are low and spread out, and the approach is set by the car park rather than by a street frontage.

The concert hall on the site has run a touring programme for years and is the main reason many people make the drive. A spa, a set of restaurants and a hotel wing are attached to the same complex. The property is owned by the First Nation, and revenue from it is shared with communities across Ontario. Of the four entries in this section, this is the one furthest from a city and closest to open water and trees.