Toronto Royal Ontario Museum | ?m | ?s | Daniel Libeskind

Lately I've been calling it the Royal Ontario Daycare. I am beginning to wonder if they care about adults anymore. The new section is open concept, so a child screaming their head off somewhere will be heard everywhere. I understand how attractive some areas of the museum can be for kids, but the disconnect between the level of the collections and the clientèle can be jarring. I once saw a table set up for kids to draw right outside the Ancient Greece section. It makes it impossible to think and appreciate what is in front of you.
 
Bayer said:
Lately I've been calling it the Royal Ontario Daycare. I am beginning to wonder if they care about adults anymore. The new section is open concept, so a child screaming their head off somewhere will be heard everywhere. I understand how attractive some areas of the museum can be for kids, but the disconnect between the level of the collections and the clientèle can be jarring. I once saw a table set up for kids to draw right outside the Ancient Greece section. It makes it impossible to think and appreciate what is in front of you.
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Thorsell was a proponent of the adult museum - but I think the focus might have shifted back to the Science Centre crowd during Janet Carding's tenure. With her departure, hopefully the pendulum will shift back to the more mature crowd.

And gawd, the branding and the website is sear your eyeballs ugly. Big black font that screams loud isn't my idea of classy or timelessness.

AoD
 
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The pendulum keeps swinging between prepubescent children and adults. What about teenagers?

I once joked with a ROM security guard about how the addition of Wi-Fi is a way to attract teenagers to visit the museum.

By the way, it is unfortunate that the Children's Own Museum had to close down.

Here is a compromise solution (albeit one that is expensive): the ROM can be for teenagers and adults, while a new hands-on museum can be for children. Name it Children's Own Museum (and it doesn't necessarily have to be in the McLaughlin Planetarium site like before).

This way, the ROM can get some exhibits such as Aztec human sacrifice.

Interestingly enough, when the ROM had a temporary exhibit about Pompeii, it had a mini-section dedicated to Roman sexuality (and that did not stop young children from visiting there at all).
 
Filip said:
Well said. A museum (especially one with such a rich collection) is a place of quiet reflection and learning. Not a centre of screaming kids. We have a Science Centre for that.
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We also have an aquarium, and god damn those screaming kids there were so obnoxious when I visited last year.
 
salsa said:
We also have an aquarium, and god damn those screaming kids there were so obnoxious when I visited last year.
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Precisely. The dumbing down of society continues... Leave museums alone!

I'm very glad the previous head of ROM left... Elementary school ideas for a globally recognized museum... Sigh.
 
Filip said:
Well said. A museum (especially one with such a rich collection) is a place of quiet reflection and learning. Not a centre of screaming kids. We have a Science Centre for that.
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Wait until they decide to run around and bump into the exposed artifacts (eg. In the Chinese Sculpture Court) *sigh*. Well behaved kids belong to the museum - not so sure about brats and their entitled, enabling parents - they belong to etiquette school.

And the kiddifaction is probably driven at least partly by the need to increase attendance - for a museum of this calibre, the amount of funding and endowment is paltry.

AoD
 
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greenleaf said:
There's some serious ageism in this thread now. Kids are people too with different needs.
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Their different needs should not interfere or otherwise reduce enjoyment for other users of the museum. It's not like kids should be banned from the museum - but that we should expect a certain level of decorum from all visitors - regardless of their age.

AoD
 
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I love to see kids in museums. But parents should be teaching their kids to behave in a museum. While I don't begrudge the kids their child-like enthusiasm and don't expect them to be acting like mini-adults, the running and yelling one sees so often is simply unacceptable.
 
Skeezix said:
I love to see kids in museums. But parents should be teaching their kids to behave in a museum. While I don't begrudge the kids their child-like enthusiasm and don't expect them to be acting like mini-adults, the running and yelling one sees so often is simply unacceptable.
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Exactly - those are the rules of the house, and it's the job of the parents to enforce them. Failing that, the institution itself should enforce them. It is no different from expectations that kids will not disrupt live performances or whatnot.

AoD
 
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I understand where you are coming from, but parents can often control their kids only to a certain point, just like a poster trying to control ageist comments in this thread.

Believe me, no parent wants their child to be running and yelling around the museum.
 
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