Museum Station

[Urban Shocker]

The subway stations are most definitely more-than-the-equal of Kinoshita's ROM Terrace Galleries. Functionally, the Terrace Galleries prevented the Museum from expanding as originally planned and were a mistake that had to be corrected. The subway stations are what makes the system work, just as the successful parts of the ROM - including the 1914 and 1933 wings - do.

Like a gleeful twelve-year-old-in-Disneyland, TKTKTK confuses novelty with significance.

 

[TKTKTK]

The subway stations are most definitely more-than-the-equal of Kinoshita's ROM Terrace Galleries. Functionally, the Terrace Galleries prevented the Museum from expanding as originally planned and were a mistake that had to be corrected. The subway stations are what makes the system work, just as the successful parts of the ROM - including the 1914 and 1933 wings - do.

The ROM worked fine with Kinoshita's galleries, they just "prevented the Museum from expanding" - which is not unlike what this slavish devotion to preservation and restoration is doing to our subway system, preventing it from becoming anymore than just basic.

Like a gleeful twelve-year-old-in-Disneyland, TKTKTK confuses novelty with significance.

No, actually, I don't. I just don't suffer from myopia. It must shock you.

 

[Urban Shocker]

The ROM has been improved by the removal of the Terrace Galleries, which had novelty appeal at the time they were built - promising a boldly reimagined museum - but were nevertheless a confusing jumble of unmemorable spaces not unlike the AGO galleries that were recently demolished to make way for their new addition. The ROM temporarily lost track of the original plan with this radical early-1980s departure.

The redesign process, in both instances, brings clarity and ease of visitor navigation to both institutions, allowing the stories that their collections hold to be told properly. That basic service to visitors had been lost sight of. As was the basic appeal of the ROM's collections - seeing the objects themselves - when the '70's Disneyfication of the museum experience took place - an ersatz approach which, thankfully has now been abandoned.

A similarly dated approach lives on, below ground in the subway. The rogue benefactors will wave their magic wands over a few stations on the system and than move on to something else - leaving behind a "what were they thinking?" legacy for the next generation to snigger at, much as we regard the junked-up solutions that have "improved" Commerce Court's exterior spaces, or the Peace Garden and other "improvements" made at Nathan Phillips Square.

 

[TKTKTK]

The ROM has been improved by the removal of the Terrace Galleries, which had novelty appeal at the time they were built - promising a boldly reimagined museum - but were nevertheless a confusing jumble of unmemorable spaces not unlike the AGO galleries that were recently demolished to make way for their new addition. The ROM temporarily lost track of the original plan with this radical early-1980s departure.

Certainly not an opinion that's ever been applied to the Crystal.

The redesign process, in both instances, brings clarity and ease of visitor navigation to both institutions, allowing the stories that their collections hold to be told properly.

That borders on flat-out wrong. The Crystal hasn't brought clarity, ease of visitor navigation, or helped clarify the stories of the ROM's collections. Still, it's a great addition that I love.

That basic service to visitors had been lost sight of. As was the basic appeal of the ROM's collections - seeing the objects themselves - when the '70's Disneyfication of the museum experience took place - an ersatz approach which, thankfully has now been abandoned.

Kinoshita's extension was Disneyfication while Libeskind's is clarifying?

A similarly dated approach lives on, below ground in the subway. The rogue benefactors will wave their magic wands over a few stations on the system and than move on to something else - leaving behind a "what were they thinking?" legacy for the next generation to snigger at, much as we regard the junked-up solutions that have "improved" Commerce Court's exterior spaces, or the Peace Garden and other "improvements" made at Nathan Phillips Square.

As long as you refuse to participate in change, acting instead only as a force of opposition, then your voice won't really be heard in the final product. The stations, in a lot of cases, can't get worse, and yet you deride any effort to effect change. I don't really love the Museum station renovation either, but I'm open to it - and can accept it as yet another form for our subway to take.

We can't fear taking architectural risks, or enacting architectural change, because once we didn't do it very well. That kind of timidity is really doing this great city a disservice.

 

[JasonParis]

In that light, if we think of all the renos/upgrades to the 1954 Yonge line stations, the most instructively successful from a "subway heritage" POV was one of the if not the first: the c1980 Queen Station makeover which added the John Boyle murals and the red/blue ceiling crisscrosses, but kept the Vitrolite. Simple as pie. Unfortunately, the clods at the TTC had to go and replace the Vitrolite in the late 90s, and throw in a crude subway-font replacement for good measure--but consider Queen Station before that time, and you may get a hint on how ideally to handle a whole slew of B-D stations...

I completely agree Adma. It seems like there's a compromise position to all this that is lost on this forum.

 

[junctionist]

I completely agree Adma. It seems like there's a compromise position to all this that is lost on this forum.

There's at least two I suppose, as I suggested a compromise position in this thread.

 

[JasonParis]

Sorry, I guess I missed that!

 

[Urban Shocker]

TKTKTK: The Crystal allows visitors to move between the second and third floors of the north end of the 1914 and 1933 wings as originally envisioned when the building was planned a century ago. The displays in the Crystal galleries are linked thematically to the displays in those earlier wings, and the 1934 linking wing has been retained to further strengthen that logical, original circulation plan and the sequence of displays. Libeskind's design is a practical measure, not a novelty act like your beloved little Chewbacca add-ons in the subway, gifted by condescending rogue benefactors simply because a befuddled TTC allows them to do so.

As a result, when all the renovations are done, visitors can navigate through the ROM more easily, see displays that are arranged sequentially and logically, with new clarity brought to the museum-going experience.

The Crystal is a practical solution to the problems created by the radically new direction set by the Terrace Galleries, which were wedged into the north end of the 'H' and prevented the realization of the original plan. So, yes, Libeskind has used the design process to fix the error of Kinoshita's building, which went up during an era when the ROM was blocking windows, lowering ceilings, and downplaying the beautiful objects in their collection in favour of ersatz, Disneyfied experiences of them. I realize that the re-emergence of the ROM as a museum for grownups may be a bit much for you to take, given your passion for creating a theme park atmosphere in the subway below, but you'll get used to it.

If the next stage of the ROM's expansion - building on the Planetarium site - sees the creation of another linking wing at the south end of the site, then the final element in the original expansion plan of a century ago will have been put in place.

 

[TKTKTK]

TKTKTK: The Crystal allows visitors to move between the second and third floors of the north end of the 1914 and 1933 wings as originally envisioned when the building was planned a century ago. The displays in the Crystal galleries are linked thematically to the displays in those earlier wings, and the 1934 linking wing has been retained to further strengthen that logical, original circulation plan and the sequence of displays. Libeskind's design is a practical measure, not a novelty act like your beloved little Chewbacca add-ons in the subway, gifted by condescending rogue benefactors simply because a befuddled TTC allows them to do so.

Your contempt is humorously noted. I've gone out of my way to suggest that I don't really like the Museum station reno. Since you're not actually reading my posts, I understand how you missed that.

As a result, when all the renovations are done, visitors can navigate through the ROM more easily, see displays that are arranged sequentially and logically, with new clarity brought to the museum-going experience.

There is little logic in a gallery or museum space being comprised of nearly all inclined planes, with an expectation that artists would adjust themselves accordingly, and necessitating the design and construction of very specific display cases.

The Crystal is a practical solution to the problems created by the radically new direction set by the Terrace Galleries

Do you even read what you're trying to posit? There's not much point in spending more time refuting your ridiculous, ill thought out opinions.

You don't like me, I get it.

 

[TKTKTK]

Urby, I think I understand our problem, I believe there's a bit of a sar-chasm between us. I'm not sure if sarcasm is your strong suit or not, but just in case I thought I'd let you know my original suggestions for St. George station, et al, were tongue in cheek. I know sometimes I can be too clever for my own good, so in the interests of not ruffling feathers I thought I'd take this opportunity to clarify.

I hope we can move beyond this and start sharing the same intelligent debating I see elsewhere.

 

[adma]

We can't fear taking architectural risks, or enacting architectural change, because once we didn't do it very well. That kind of timidity is really doing this great city a disservice.

But maybe, as the general efforts of Spacing and the uTOpian/Torontopian realm seek to affirm, perhaps the more important timidity we have to address is in the way we *behold* the city, rather than in the way we *build* the city. Especially as the former can be a pretty effective corrective to the latter, and a signal that sometimes, it may be better (and more virtuously economical) to leave well enough alone.

Your absolute refusal to accept on any but a token basis that the existing subway aesthetic is worth taking seriously as a "subway aesthetic", as opposed to being an uninspiring non sequitur that needs to be addressed through extreme makeovers, proves that you're behind the curve there. Really, what you're expressing reminds me of the kind of mentality that'd find early Clash records to be barren and blah and devoid of the stirring, inspirational qualities of Gary Wright's "Dream Weaver".

I've described it before as Sunday Painter Urbanism, this overstatement of Toronto's supposedly fatal "ugliness", "timidity", et al. Sometimes, I hate to say it, an oh-so-earnest Calatravista or Alsopista can be nothing more than a Chedingtonista in modern/contemporary drag...

 

[TKTKTK]

But maybe, as the general efforts of Spacing and the uTOpian/Torontopian realm seek to affirm, perhaps the more important timidity we have to address is in the way we *behold* the city, rather than in the way we *build* the city. Especially as the former can be a pretty effective corrective to the latter, and a signal that sometimes, it may be better (and more virtuously economical) to leave well enough alone.

Your absolute refusal to accept on any but a token basis that the existing subway aesthetic is worth taking seriously as a "subway aesthetic", as opposed to being an uninspiring non sequitur that needs to be addressed through extreme makeovers, proves that you're behind the curve there. Really, what you're expressing reminds me of the kind of mentality that'd find early Clash records to be barren and blah and devoid of the stirring, inspirational qualities of Gary Wright's "Dream Weaver".

Hubris.

You keep trying to reframe my arguments as demanding that everything be torn down but a couple stations. All I've said is that we should preserve a couple in perfect condition so that we can modernize and update the rest of the stations without being crippled by historic constraints. Maybe we'll want to include a lot of the old stuff, maybe we won't - I only support the option to choose when the time comes.

Additionally, I was suggesting wild and surreal showcase stations that could be peppered around the system. Not every station, and not even literally for real. Again, the funny/rough concepts didn't preclude the possibility of our much vaunted "subway aesthetic" from being present.

I think the issue here is that some people are so crippled by sentimentality that they're not even able to imagine what other, favourable, possibilities exist. They prefer to point to a few lame duck examples as the horrors of what could go wrong. Such pessimism, cynicism, yawnism.

I've described it before as Sunday Painter Urbanism, this overstatement of Toronto's supposedly fatal "ugliness", "timidity", et al. Sometimes, I hate to say it, an oh-so-earnest Calatravista or Alsopista can be nothing more than a Chedingtonista in modern/contemporary drag...

Wow, you guys reserve almost as much judgment for members as you do for urban planning and architecture. Is it ok if I stay? Do I measure up? Am I historically sympathetic enough?

 

[TKTKTK]

But, does it *have* to negate the existing aesthetic, much less treat it as something expendably non-aesthetic--especially in the post-Spacing-button era?

I think there might be a misunderstanding of why the spacing buttons are so beloved. I'm not sure the general public loves them because of their tiles and colours - they love them because they're symbolic of a place they use and relate personally to. It's not that they're in love with the medium of that message (the tiles and names) it's that they love the subject of that message; the whole of the subway system, and their local (and other frequently used) stations. It's just our version of the coloured-circle-plus-letter roundel that New Yorkers wear on t-shirts.

If the station was a dragon, or a bathroom, or a Swedish cave, they'd love the station just the same. It's mutable, as long as what replaces it isn't stupid and crippling ugly (like, saaaay a butter-coloured faux historic stucco-spray job like those townhouses on Bathurst). But no one's calling for that, are they?

 

[Urban Shocker]

The eternal adolescent in TKTKTK wants, "wild and surreal showcase stations that could be peppered around the system" - and he has already given an example of the sort of amusement park for twelve year olds he'd like to create at Museum station.

Meanwhile, the conservative and cautious TKTKTK completely misunderstands the Crystal, describing a building with inclined walls as having "little logic". The logic is perfectly appropriate for a building with an exterior consisting of inclined walls - the illogic would be if the galleries were rectilinear! Think of the building as a crystalline sculpture that you can walk around inside, composed of planes and volumes that extend through five floors, and you grasp the concept of the place. And it is a very practical structure that bridges the 1914 and 1933 wings in accordance with Darling and Pearson's original design for expansion - which saw an entrance facing Bloor Street eventually. Well, almost a century later we've got it.

Also, suggesting that "artists would adjust themselves accordingly" ignores both the possibilities of site-specific art installations and the existing art which has so far been successfully exhibited in the ICC on the Crystal's level 4.

He also talks of "necessitating the design and construction of very specific display cases" as if that was some sort of abomination for a major museum with very specific objects to display. It isn't. They all do it. The ROM did it when they opened in 1914. The AGO won't be shopping at IKEA for their new display system either.

 

[ProjectEnd]

You know, and I know, that that photo shows an architectural triumph that brings architecture to a new level.

On the otherhand, I bet most people find it depressingly drab. Those philistines!

"I'd rather sleep in Chartes Cathedral with the nearest john three blocks away than in a Harvard dorm with back to back washrooms"

-Philip Johnson (1950)

In short, Gropius' modernism was dogmatically ideological. He was often criticized for creating buildings and spaces which attached themselves more to the ideals of modernism without accounting for its inherent problems.