Museum Station

[junctionist]

Today's Museum Update

Now there are more advertisement frames installed onto the panels, and there's a new sign on the southbound wall that indicates it's the southbound side, next station Queen's Park. The sign is different from the standard ones throughout the system as it's not as big, and it has the line colour stripe.

 

[Urban Shocker]

A different signage system for each station now? Way to go, TTC!

 

[299 bloor call control.]

I'm actually really surprised they never installed the hanging signs along the length of the platform a la Sheppard Subway. The last I heard, they were planning on slowly rolling that out to the whole system.

 

[TKTKTK]

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.

It's funny, when I was writing that Museum vignette, I was thinking that most twelve year olds wouldn't appreciate the connection made between the museum above and the grave-robbing that went into finding its collection.

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!

It's not perfectly appropriate, it's the only response to a building envelope decision. Libeskind didn't start with the ideal of canted walls because they're the best format to present artifacts against, he started with a sculpture and then made it work as something else.

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.

Then it's most significant and successful part is nearly entirely hidden, and is almost entirely superfluous to the real building statement. It could have been incorporated into any of the other designs (though I understand that it wasn't)

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.

The ROM doesn't really deal with artists - it's a Museum. Unless you're going to travel back in time and have some Ming Vases thrown into a more convenient shape. I'm not suggesting that work CAN'T be showcases in this environment, but you're being duplicitous by suggesting that it's form is the best response to its intended use.

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.

That doesn't mean it's logical to throw them even harder restrictions.

In the same way you can see no wrong in the 4 Seasons, you can see no wrong in the ROM. I evidently find it a lot easier to like something while still being able to objectively critique it.

 

[Urban Shocker]

TKTKTK: Please get out more and visit the ROM and you'll see the work of contemporary artists there all the time. Visit the ICC and you'll come face to face with it. If you'd seen Canada Collects you would have noticed contemporary art there too. The ICC Gallery and the Garfield Weston Exhibition Hall are both spaces in the Crystal that have worked well to showcase visual art.

 

[TKTKTK]

TKTKTK: Please get out more and visit the ROM and you'll see the work of contemporary artists there all the time. Visit the ICC and you'll come face to face with it. If you'd seen Canada Collects you would have noticed contemporary art there too. The ICC Gallery and the Garfield Weston Exhibition Hall are both spaces in the Crystal that have worked well to showcase visual art.

There may be contemporary art at the ROM, but that's not the bulk of their collection, nor the crux of their mandate, nor was the Crystal fund-raised for and built for the ROM's contemporary art collection (if it even has a permanent one, which I suspect it doesn't)

Its form is not a response to the input of "museum" it's just an expression of Libeskind's personal aesthetic - we wanted that aesthetic, so we've been forced to accept the bad with that good. There's nothing particularly appropriate about his design though, we put up with it because we wanted a Libeskind. It evidently kills you to accept something so obvious and basic.

And why are we talking about the ROM so much anyway? Hasn't the reason it was raised been refuted already: that being the ROM and AGO extensions were examples of not tearing things down to start over?

 

[TKTKTK]

"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.

I think this is something that a lot of contemporary architecture suffers from. When the current wildstyle of architecture enters its unfashionable period, will people think of these buildings as both monstrously ugly and hard to use? Or will their Starchitect pedigrees make them exempt?

 

[Urban Shocker]

The important thing is how well buildings are designed, based on their function. There is no reason to assume that a "wildstyle" building that works now will be impractical to use in the future, regardless of how fashionable or unfashionable it becomes, unless it is converted to a new use that doesn't fit with the space it contains.

I'm afraid you're wrong again, TKTKTK, about the ICC: The ICC Gallery ( please note: it has nothing to do with displaying a permanent art collection ) was fundraised for as part of Renaissance ROM, along with all other parts of the new and renovated Museum. It is an important part of the Museum since it links the cultures represented in the ROM's collection with the contemporary world outside the institution, and brings other cultures into the Museum via different artists working in various media. Check it out some time if you ever visit the place, throw out those preconceived ideas about what a museum is supposed to be, sweep away those mental cobwebs!

Of course the ROM is an expression of Libeskind's personal aesthetic - that's what starchitecture is all about. As already pointed out, there is no reason to assume that a "wildstyle" building is impractical to use, and I've explained to you several times exactly how the Crystal has solved problems created by an earlier building that was impractical and had to be taken down. It, and the AGO, are examples of plenty being torn down to start over.

 

[adma]

I think this is something that a lot of contemporary architecture suffers from. When the current wildstyle of architecture enters its unfashionable period, will people think of these buildings as both monstrously ugly and hard to use? Or will their Starchitect pedigrees make them exempt?

It depends on what you mean by "people".

And if you're the sort who'd gladly sacrifice drab ol' Gropius at Harvard on behalf of something oh-so-dazzling-and-of-today, you're truly an ignorant hick of the highest proportion...

 

[TKTKTK]

It depends on what you mean by "people".

And if you're the sort who'd gladly sacrifice drab ol' Gropius at Harvard on behalf of something oh-so-dazzling-and-of-today, you're truly an ignorant hick of the highest proportion...

Meaningless insults from people too cowed by 'modern' to make aesthetic decisions for themselves. Yawnsville, pop. 2.

 

[TKTKTK]

The important thing is how well buildings are designed, based on their function. There is no reason to assume that a "wildstyle" building that works now will be impractical to use in the future, regardless of how fashionable or unfashionable it becomes, unless it is converted to a new use that doesn't fit with the space it contains.

Except they're not really designed based on a function, they're designed based on a form - and then have a function later applied to them. You're being willfully ignorant by refusing to acknowledge that. The buildings, in many cases, don't quite work. We're just so blown away by the newness of it all that we're willing to bend to suit them, we're happy to bend to suit them - because then we're the enlightened few. Boring.

I'm afraid you're wrong again, TKTKTK, about the ICC: The ICC Gallery ( please note: it has nothing to do with displaying a permanent art collection ) was fundraised for as part of Renaissance ROM, along with all other parts of the new and renovated Museum. It is an important part of the Museum since it links the cultures represented in the ROM's collection with the contemporary world outside the institution, and brings other cultures into the Museum via different artists working in various media. Check it out some time if you ever visit the place, throw out those preconceived ideas about what a museum is supposed to be, sweep away those mental cobwebs!

How am I wrong? The ROM isn't about contemporary art. If it has a gallery dedicated to it now, congrats, but it's just one gallery. If contemporary art is the crux of your defense of the ROM's addition then I don't know why you're trying to make it seem like I'm the dummy.

Again, you're not reading my posts. Maybe you're reading a couple key words here and there - but I think the bulk of the message is going right over your head.

Of course the ROM is an expression of Libeskind's personal aesthetic - that's what starchitecture is all about. As already pointed out, there is no reason to assume that a "wildstyle" building is impractical to use, and I've explained to you several times exactly how the Crystal has solved problems created by an earlier building that was impractical and had to be taken down.

Yes, the addition of a hallway and an entrance along Bloor. Two tremendously minor elements in an extension rife with other issues. Or...have there been none?

It, and the AGO, are examples of plenty being torn down to start over.

But they entered the conversation as examples of NOT tearing stuff down, and you were defending them from that position. Again, I don't think you're actually reading the posts here.

 

[TKTKTK]

throw out those preconceived ideas about what a museum is supposed to be, sweep away those mental cobwebs!

Sorry, that quote deserves it's own post.

It's been my underlying point in this subway station debate all along. You obviously agree with the idea, you just either dislike me too much to admit it, or you haven't quite realized how it related.

 

[adma]

Meaningless insults from people too cowed by 'modern' to make aesthetic decisions for themselves. Yawnsville, pop. 2.

TKTKTK, that's exactly what I mean by being a Chedingtonista in contemporary drag. Even if you're speaking on behalf of dynamic contemporary visions for the subway, you're doing it with the tone of a McMansion builder sneering at the elites. And in the process, you're blowing off those architecture/heritage/planning movers and shakers about town who ought to be supporting your vision. I mean, when it comes to handling something like the B-D subway, who, pray tell, is going to take seriously the kind of mentality that'd gladly whoosh away the Harvard Graduate Center because so-called "real people" find it blah and a replacement can be soooo much more exciting?

 

[TKTKTK]

TKTKTK, that's exactly what I mean by being a Chedingtonista in contemporary drag. Even if you're speaking on behalf of dynamic contemporary visions for the subway, you're doing it with the tone of a McMansion builder sneering at the elites. And in the process, you're blowing off those architecture/heritage/planning movers and shakers about town who ought to be supporting your vision.

Who? You and UrbanShocker? He's just arguing to see his words, while you're so unfamiliar with shades of grey that you keep pushing me into white or black positions.

I haven't taken the position of McMansion builder, but I've mildly defended the idea that no single aesthetic speaks to all people. That Philip Johnson Gropius comment is precisely where I'm coming from.

I'm not sneering at the elites, I am sneering at the pseudo-elites whose boosterism is applied indiscriminately.

I mean, when it comes to handling something like the B-D subway, who, pray tell, is going to take seriously the kind of mentality that'd gladly whoosh away the Harvard Graduate Center because so-called "real people" find it blah and a replacement can be soooo much more exciting?

I never suggested a replacement for the Harvard Graduate Centre, but ProjectEnd was nice enough to provide a critical quote from Philip Johnson that summarizes the position nicely Or is he a McMansion builder too?

 

[adma]

I never suggested a replacement for the Harvard Graduate Centre, but ProjectEnd was nice enough to provide a critical quote from Philip Johnson that summarizes the position nicely Or is he a McMansion builder too?

Well, from AT&T onward, some may argue that his aesthetics were prone to sinking to that level

But yeah: speaking of the devil, consider the source, and the rough date thereof, and the ethos he was reflecting/egging on with such a quote. Essentially, you're using the kind of Philip Johnson quote that'd be a natural lead-in to/co-opted-by "From Bauhaus To Our House", and the advent of the Bauhaus-bashing middlebrow amateur. Which, in the long run, led to the Chedingtonista phenomenon.

"That Philip Johnson Gropius comment is precisely where I'm coming from"? Maybe it had au courant validity in 1983, but in 2008, saying that with a straight face'll earn you horselaughs outside virtually any realm outside of hardcore modern-bashing neo-traditionalism...

Is this where you're coming from? Considering what we're dealing with, it ain't necessarily good...