Urban Shocker
Doyenne
The Museum's mandate - "The Arts of Man through all the Years" - includes the present day, and our contemporart art, thank goodness.
rdaner
Senior Member
Any impressions of the just opened galleries? Are peoples opinions changing about the Crystal now that most of it is functional and integrated into the larger, preexisting complex?
urbandreamer
recession proof
Nope. I still think it looks appalling. Details details details. Throw another $100 million at it to get it right.
MetroMan
Senior Member
I have to say that the Crystal is functioning well as a museum. To the surprise of many, the slanted walls don't have much of an effect on the display.
The display cases are a large part of the success of these new galleries. The transparency and their straight-to-the-pointness works well. The spaces continue to be airy and feel large. Visitors feel very close with the pieces on display. You can almost touch them.
As for the rest of the museum, the details are getting worked out. Some ugly finishings are being redone and surfaces are being reinvented. The Hyacinth Court's walls are serving as canvases for projections while the walls of the Stair of Wonders are being used for vinyl ads for expositions in the museum.
I'm going again today. I'll report back on any other improvements I notice.
The display cases are a large part of the success of these new galleries. The transparency and their straight-to-the-pointness works well. The spaces continue to be airy and feel large. Visitors feel very close with the pieces on display. You can almost touch them.
As for the rest of the museum, the details are getting worked out. Some ugly finishings are being redone and surfaces are being reinvented. The Hyacinth Court's walls are serving as canvases for projections while the walls of the Stair of Wonders are being used for vinyl ads for expositions in the museum.
I'm going again today. I'll report back on any other improvements I notice.
MetroMan
Senior Member
In the meantime, I continue to day dream about my pipe dream:
A red glass clad Michael Lee Chin Crystal
sigh
A red glass clad Michael Lee Chin Crystal
sigh
adma
Superstar
Nobby's Piles would make a good nickname for that
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
I looked around the new galleries after the Colloquium on Friday.
Lisa Golombeck, the curator who gave Friday's Colloquium talk about the various installations of the Islamic collection over several decades, believes the new Crystal displays redress the faults of the previous displays.
She pointed out that the 1982 installation of the Islamic collection was intended to be a part of the "Mediterranean World" group of galleries that never happened. The attempt at that time was to create religious, commercial and domestic environments to evoke a sense of visiting that part of the world. Thus, there was a working fountain, textiles from the ROM's collection were arranged in a room-like setting, a commercial bazaar district was created, environments that suggested shops with pottery, farm implements, art objects etc. were included in chamber-like settings. She pointed out that some Muslim students had objected to such displays and the mixture of styles and periods as giving a backwards impression of their culture. She concluded that "dioramas prejudice the message" - hence the new approach taken in the Crystal.
Lisa Golombeck, the curator who gave Friday's Colloquium talk about the various installations of the Islamic collection over several decades, believes the new Crystal displays redress the faults of the previous displays.
She pointed out that the 1982 installation of the Islamic collection was intended to be a part of the "Mediterranean World" group of galleries that never happened. The attempt at that time was to create religious, commercial and domestic environments to evoke a sense of visiting that part of the world. Thus, there was a working fountain, textiles from the ROM's collection were arranged in a room-like setting, a commercial bazaar district was created, environments that suggested shops with pottery, farm implements, art objects etc. were included in chamber-like settings. She pointed out that some Muslim students had objected to such displays and the mixture of styles and periods as giving a backwards impression of their culture. She concluded that "dioramas prejudice the message" - hence the new approach taken in the Crystal.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
The Museum was extremely busy during Family Day weekend, with shitloads of small children underfoot everywhere. The queue to get in on Sunday afternoon snaked back to the old entrance on Queen's Park Crescent. Thank goodness there was a separate members entrance. Quite a lot of the visitors apparently think the dinosaurs are here temporarily!
Much of the South Asian art hasn't been on display before. And some hasn't been seen for a while, including the stunning large 4th/5th century stucco Bodhisattva head - I thought the smaller related figures in display cases in front of it very fine too. The 12th/14th century bronze Lord of the Dance figure in motion is exquisitely modelled. And there were small items in the Middle East gallery - lively Bronze Age Luristan metalwares, earthenware figurines, and vessels decorated with strong geometric designs, and larger Iron Age female figurines, that I want to go back and get to know better.
They've steered away from dioramas completely - the Technology display case, for instance, contains handmade vessels of domestic use arranged clearly and logically by era and type so the visitor can compare them. The objects tell the story.
There was plenty of pedestrian traffic, moving through from the Egypt gallery into the Crystal. People seem to get it.
A good selection of contemporary art too - some by artists born in the 1960s, including a video by Shahzia Sikander, and earlier Modernist works by leading Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indian artists. All side-by-side in the same display.
Good views of the building itself from the "beak" at the north end of the Crystal - looking up to the fourth floor, down to the lower levels, and across to the Africa, Americas and Asia-Pacific galleries - where display cases are being installed for April's opening. Also, walking across the Spirit House bridge gives views of people on the floor below crossing between the Dino/Mammals galleries, and below them to the ground floor.
Much of the South Asian art hasn't been on display before. And some hasn't been seen for a while, including the stunning large 4th/5th century stucco Bodhisattva head - I thought the smaller related figures in display cases in front of it very fine too. The 12th/14th century bronze Lord of the Dance figure in motion is exquisitely modelled. And there were small items in the Middle East gallery - lively Bronze Age Luristan metalwares, earthenware figurines, and vessels decorated with strong geometric designs, and larger Iron Age female figurines, that I want to go back and get to know better.
They've steered away from dioramas completely - the Technology display case, for instance, contains handmade vessels of domestic use arranged clearly and logically by era and type so the visitor can compare them. The objects tell the story.
There was plenty of pedestrian traffic, moving through from the Egypt gallery into the Crystal. People seem to get it.
A good selection of contemporary art too - some by artists born in the 1960s, including a video by Shahzia Sikander, and earlier Modernist works by leading Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indian artists. All side-by-side in the same display.
Good views of the building itself from the "beak" at the north end of the Crystal - looking up to the fourth floor, down to the lower levels, and across to the Africa, Americas and Asia-Pacific galleries - where display cases are being installed for April's opening. Also, walking across the Spirit House bridge gives views of people on the floor below crossing between the Dino/Mammals galleries, and below them to the ground floor.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
interchange: On the U of T Law Faculty Expansion thread I was referring to the ROM's plans to develop the Planetarium site in general terms as being part of the revival of Philosopher's Walk. I have no inside information about what it will actually be. Sorry to get your hopes up.
Urban Shocker Q.C.
Urban Shocker Q.C.
Oh, dash it all!
42
Thx for replying so promptly US.
42
Thx for replying so promptly US.
spaced
Active Member
Dear Rom,
Icicles, warmed by a late-winter sun, hang precariously from the Crystal's odd angles over the pedestrian plaza outside the Royal Ontario Museum's grand entrance on Bloor St., March 10, 2008.
March 11, 2008
Christopher Hume
If architects were as cavalier about gravity as they are about weather, half the buildings in this city would have fallen down by now.
The most recent and spectacular example of contemporary architectural hubris is Daniel Libeskind's addition to the Royal Ontario Museum, the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. Turns out its precariously angled aluminum and glass facades are the ideal icicle machine. If Libeskind had set out specifically to design a building that endangers passersby with falling ice, he couldn't have done better.
The exteriors protrude at just enough of an angle that snow can collect on them. They also happen to be made of materials that absorb heat from sunlight, melting the snow that then drips and freezes into large icy protrusions capable of seriously hurting anyone below.
Of course, Libeskind isn't alone. Dozens of office towers downtown – including the Toronto Star building at One Yonge St. – must regularly put up signs warning pedestrians of falling ice. It's a rite of winter in Toronto, if not spring.
Global warming notwithstanding, snow and ice still happen here. But judging from much of the city's architecture, you'd never know it.
This is especially true of newer structures built of steel, glass and other high-tech materials. In its own way, the phenomenon highlights the failure of the modern world to remember the basic facts of life. Architects are by no means alone in thinking they're above such mundane considerations as climate; it is the story of our age. It is why environmental degradation has become the crisis it is.
Architects are simply men (and women) of their time. Now that technology has liberated the profession from problems that kept their predecessors earthbound for millennia, the sky is the limit. Not only can they reach ever higher into the clouds, they are able to express themselves as never before.
For Libeskind, among our most poetic practitioners, that means creating structures like the Crystal that defy traditional limitations, including that of gravity itself. Who says walls must rise perpendicular to the ground?
Thus the contemporary architect is freed from conventional constraints to deal with more artistic issues. In Libeskind's case, that means creating an aesthetic appropriate to an age characterized by anxiety, pain and provocation. The Crystal evokes all this brilliantly.
It is a magnificent accomplishment, though most Torontonians feel otherwise. We are, it seems, an overwhelmingly practical lot, not given to flights of poetic fancy, whether in two dimensions or three. We also derive satisfaction from hearing of the misfortunes of the Libeskinds of the world.
When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sued Frank Gehry earlier this winter, the press went wild. His Stata Center building leaks, is poorly drained, mouldy and, yes, icicles fall from its roof.
Let's not forget Madame Savoye, whose family commissioned the father of modern architecture, Le Corbusier, to design a residence. The Villa Savoye became one of the most celebrated buildings of the 20th century. But Madame Savoye was so upset by the leaky roof, she threatened to sue.
This is no excuse, of course, but it reminds us that despite reports to the contrary, architects are human after all.
May I make a suggestion:
I mean, really, what's the big deal. God people are dense. I'm really surprised a Libenskind didn't include a device to melt the icicles--it's not like he's from a warm climate either. Or maybe it was part of budget cut?
Sarcastically Signed,
jaymckay
"Move the chair" - Frank Lloyd Wright's response to a client who phoned him to complain of rain leaking through the roof of the house onto the dining table.
spaced
Active Member
Haha, Frank must have just heard that 'man walks into a doctors office' joke.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
jaymckay: There are heating elements in the roof.
The cladding panels are designed to collect snow. That's quite clear whenever we have a heavy storm. The top edges of the panels are angled outwards to reduce the risk that snow will slide off the building, and to break up any snow that does.
The cladding panels are designed to collect snow. That's quite clear whenever we have a heavy storm. The top edges of the panels are angled outwards to reduce the risk that snow will slide off the building, and to break up any snow that does.
MetroMan
Senior Member
Not working quite well is it?