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

Well, construction on the Crystal is complete. They're just finishing off small details now. If you look around now, there's hardly a construction worker in sight. Two weeks ago, they were everywhere.

I know that construction will now begin on the old wings, but the crystal is pretty much done.
 
I just came back from the member's preview of "Canada Collects" and the opening of the Sigmund Samuel Gallery of Canada and Institute for Contemporary Culture. The Crystal continues to amaze and thrill me every time I go past it or into it. The Garfield Weston Exhibition Hall is a terrific exhibition space. I keep noticing little things changing here and there as the Crystal itself changes from a construction site to a lived-in and living museum.
 
MetroMan said:
I was gonna go but I was tired from my long week.
How was it?

When's it opened to the public?
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It opens October 6th...wait...that's today! I have to admit I was more interested in seeing the new spaces and the use of the spaces rather than the objects themselves. The Sigmund Samuel Gallery is a terrific restoration of one of the heritage galleries but I don't like how the furniture is exhibited. (It reminded me of the chair display on the now defunct sixth floor of the long-defunct Eaton's.) However, how things are displayed and what things are displayed will change. The important thing is the gallery itself and it’s great!

The Weston Exhibition Hall is painted! I mean really painted and not in that “builders white†that’s still everywhere else. It’s a huge space and one that the ROM desperately needed. There are some really interesting items on loan from collections all over the country. The Dukabor Quilt and the Bacon painting were stand-outs for me.

The Institute for Contemporary Culture’s, “Shapeshifters, Time Travellers and Storytellers†was terrific. You gotta see “Cetology†by Brian Jungen; not only is it a hoot, it shows off the possibilities of the gallery to great advantage.

The landscaping along Philosopher’s Walk is more or less complete ( I wish it would rain a little!). I’ll go back again in a week or so to take a closer look at the things the galleries contained but, for me, today was all about the new galleries.

I spent some time (outside and inside) watching people watching the ROM; if being photographed is any indication of success then the ROM is one, big triumph.
 
^ Nice to hear, thanks for the update.

I did forget to mention one important tidbit that Mr. Thorsell mentioned to me. I told him that when I bring friends to the ROM, they walk right past the doors that lead to the Stair of Wonders and the Crystal galleries. Those doors look like fire exits and not like the important entrance to the Crystal galleries should look like.

Well, he said that those doors will be opened permanently. They're installing magnetic posts that will hold the doors open and in case of fire, the fire alarm will release the magnets on the doors and they'll close.

I guess it's a good solution for this, but I do have to admit, that entrance is a very poor welcome into the Crystal galleries.

Hopefully they animate the stair of wonders a bit as well, it's too sterile right now. It feels like a house without furniture.
 
The preview was nice and quiet last night. I expect it'll be a zoo today. They repainted the Weston Exhibition Hall for Canada Collects - it had a different colour scheme for Japanese Paintings from the Floating World in the summer.

What a delightful show. Such a wide range of collecting, both private and institutional. For me, the art and sculpture were the star turns. But I thought the Chinese graffiti fragments were powerful, poetic and moving: those poor men, having to leave their families behind for so many years after paying the head tax, expressing their feelings on the walls of an immigration station. Lots of quirky stuff too - the lucite TV from the 1939 World's Fair, the Avro Arrow landing gear, images of Trudeau paddling his canoe ...

In Shapeshifters Kent Monkman's high-heeled moccasins, raccoon jockstrap and Louis Vuitton quiver were a hoot! And the quiet video displays - the one at Fort York especially - held me.

Nice to see so much of the Canadiana back on display in the Sigmund Samuel Gallery which used to be housed down the street for so many years. In addition to all that stacked furniture there are some great little paintings - five early views of Niagara Falls, and a plethora of early portraits of local worthies etc. A couple of interesting paintings of T.O. from the mid-1800's caught my eye, and one of Hamilton too. And including 20th century design - the magazine illustrations of Rex Woods and Arthur Heming, Blue Mountain Pottery, Beauceware, furniture, silverware, glass, Karim Rashid etc. - linked our past in the decorative arts with contemporary design.
 
Talking of sloping walls and display systems, the only problem I had with Shapeshifters was with the silly decision to place the carved Mammoth tusk display cabinet almost right against one gallery wall - making it difficult to see all of the carving.

I went back on Sunday and had another look around the Sigmund Samuel Gallery, bearing in mind Benc7's comment about how the furniture is displayed. Though not much of a pine furniture fan, I nonetheless thought that displaying the items at different heights gave unusual perspectives - the undersides of chairs, tables etc. - making the curves of the legs, structure, construction, etc. more interesting.
 
There is also a lovely display of exuberantly carved wooden pippypoos, angels, large candlesticks etc. - used by the Quebecois for clerical interior decorating many years ago - in the Sigmund Samuel Gallery.

After the Currelly talk on Wednesday we were taken through Canada Collects . I noted the rumble of the subway beneath us. And there is quite a bit of dead space in the Exhibition Hall - particularly one area where the supporting colums for the Crystal come together and have been boxed in. Interestingly, only one of the displays is from the natural world - a honking great trilobite from Manitoba.
 
Jeezuz H, I can't shuddup any more. I am in the vicinity of the Museum quite often and still I shudder and think to myself "what were they thinking?" This project has turned into a nightmare. The ROM, I think, bought bad medicine.

This "addition" should have been built in the 60s, because it is really just an acid flashback to those psychadelic and heady days. And if that had been the case, the add-on would be getting unbolted now as part of Toronto's cultural renaissance.

While there were once cobblestone sidewalks as we approached the rotunda doors on Queens Park Crescent, and some lovely outdoor display cases, there is now a shard sticking out of the side of an otherwise elegant building, and a tacky lawn at the corner. A lawn!!!

The case existed for a reno. The rotunda has always been a tad presbyterian, they could have spiced that up. The case for a skylight running the north-south spine was a slam-dunk (didn't the Italian architect's competing entry feature something like that?). True also that the old addition facing Bloor was unfortunate -- but they put something worse in its place. I can stomach a renovation which foils the older building by a contrast in style, but that has to be done deftly, not daftly.

The backers of this project are squirming now, I am sure. The wrong paws on this building. It bothers me that the architect now gets the chance to torture the O'Keefe-Hummingbird-Sony Centre; that ought to be left alone as a timepiece.

For heaven's sake where's the taste?

I ought to add that when my partner and I looked at the original all-glass crystal, we both, then and there, said it wouldn't be built, this being a museum and all. We knew it and we aren't architects or engineers or curators.

Take heart, we love Ghery's re-do of the AGO, we just love it.
 
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As I drive/bike/walk by the ROM I love it more and more. It's a great eye-catcher from the street, and I'm anxiously awaiting further opportunities to explore the inside - especially once it's full of exhibits and displays.
 
TonyV said:
This "addition" should have been built in the 60s, because it is really just an acid flashback to those psychadelic and heady days. And if that had been the case, the add-on would be getting unbolted now as part of Toronto's cultural renaissance.
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If that's how you see it, then you're painting "Toronto's cultural renaissance" as more reactionary and retrogressive than it is. Actually, if it *were* so-called 60s acid-flashback modern, it'd probably pack too much poignant Expo-era cool and credibility to be, er, "unbolted" without a fight from heritage groups, et al. In fact, it'd more likely be getting *restored* now as part of Toronto's cultural renaissance. (Yes, yes, the limbo/doomed fate of the Planetarium--an *actual* artifact of that age--notwithstanding. But that's "minor", compared to this.)

Judging by your suggestion about "spicing up" the rotunda, I probably wouldn't trust you with the sensitive treatment of the old stuff, either...
 
While I love the Crystal (As a member, I go there at least once a week, often 3 or 4 times), I think the cladding is the unfortunate choice that has downgraded a building with lots of potential.

I would propose replacing the poorly built metal with red glass like the shard indicating the entrance. The crystal would still be opaque -- protecting the artifacts inside - but a red glass outer skin could look beautiful if lit from underneath.
 
TonyV said:
This "addition" should have been built in the 60s, because it is really just an acid flashback to those psychadelic and heady days.
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On behalf of the r.o.m. crystal i'd like to say Thanks for the compliment , since the rom wasnt built with lungs a vocal cords,i felt the need to speak for her!:)
 
I'm glad to hear you're putting your membership to good use, MetroMan.

Libeskind's design solution addresses several pressing problems for the Museum:

* There's more display space, allowing more of the collections to be shown.

* Because of the increased space, several collections ( Costumes and Textiles, South East Asia, for instance ) can be brought out of storage and given their own galleries.

* The Crystal has fewer galleries than the Terrace Galleries that it replaced, but each gallery is distinctively different, and the layout of the Crystal is more easily understood than what it replaced, so visitors navigate the building more easily.

* The Crystal galleries are physically and thematically linked to the two earlier wings, helping circulation and strengthening the experience for the visitor.

We mustn't lose sight of the fact that the design process is about solving problems .
 
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