The extraordinary geometric park surrounding the Aga Khan Museum — reflecting pools, Islamic geometric garden patterns, and Canadian landscape design at their finest. The park alone, without entering the museum, is worth the journey to Don Mills.
Neighbourhood: North York · Address: 77 Wynford Dr, Toronto, ON · Hours: Mon–Sun 7:00 AM – 11:00 PM · Phone: (416) 646-4677
Why Visit
Aga Khan Park delivers rare, meticulously designed gardens, striking reflecting pools, and an escape from Toronto’s usual park experience. The interplay of Islamic geometric landscaping and native maple trees feels meditative, not just decorative.
What Makes It Unique
While most Toronto parks favour sprawling lawns, here you get formal gardens shaped by Islamic design principles rarely seen elsewhere in the city. The views of the museum’s modern white stone architecture, perfectly mirrored in thin pools, offer a unique photographic opportunity, especially at dusk.
Aga Khan Park in North York is one of Toronto's most beautifully designed and most undervisited public green spaces — 4 acres of formal Mughal-inspired gardens adjacent to the Aga Khan Museum that represent an international investment in Toronto's cultural landscape of a scale rarely seen outside of major art institutions. The park, designed by the landscape architecture firm Vladimir Djurovic, opened in 2014 alongside the museum and was declared the best public park in the world by the Urban Land Institute in 2016 — recognition that most Torontonians have not acted on by visiting.
The design is inspired by historic Islamic garden tradition, which developed the formal garden as a place of contemplation and spiritual reflection — the garden as a representation of paradise, with water, shade, and geometry organizing the space into a coherent aesthetic experience rather than merely providing green space. The result at Aga Khan Park is a formal garden with reflecting pools, sculpted lawns, mature specimen trees, and paved walkways that create a distinctly different mood from the English-style informal parks that dominate Toronto's park landscape.
The park is designed to be experienced across seasons. The reflecting pools capture the Ismaili Centre's geometry and the museum's angular form. The garden's plant palette includes species from Islamic horticultural tradition alongside cold-hardy Ontario species capable of surviving Toronto winters. In summer, the garden provides shade and quiet; in winter, the bare architectural geometry of the garden and the buildings it connects is a different but equally valid experience.
The adjacent Aga Khan Museum, dedicated to the arts of Islamic civilizations, provides the natural cultural complement to the park. Together they constitute one of Toronto's most significant recent cultural additions and a part of the city that visitors from other countries are often more aware of than local Torontonians.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Aga Khan Park free?
Yes — Aga Khan Park is a free public park open to all visitors during daylight hours year-round. There is no admission charge to walk the gardens. The adjacent Aga Khan Museum carries separate admission.
What is special about the design of Aga Khan Park?
The park is designed in the tradition of Islamic formal gardens — reflecting pools, geometric lawn patterns, specimen trees providing shade, and a spatial organization that creates contemplative quiet rather than recreational activity space. It won the Urban Land Institute's award for the world's best public park in 2016.
How do I get to Aga Khan Park?
Aga Khan Park is at 77 Wynford Drive in North York, accessible from Eglinton station on Line 1 — take the Wynford bus or walk 15 minutes northeast. The park is adjacent to the Ismaili Centre Toronto and the Aga Khan Museum.
Can I visit Aga Khan Park and the Aga Khan Museum together?
Yes — the two are adjacent and designed to be experienced together, though each has separate admission and operating hours. The park is free; the museum carries admission. Combining both creates a full cultural afternoon in North York.