rdaner
Senior Member
^Much of our city has that quality which I am increasingly finding interesting.
Toronto AGO: Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery | 48.35m | 6s | AGO | Selldorf
- Thread starter AlexBozikovic
- Start date
Oddly Oaktree
New Member
The AGO is such an interesting building. So many different eras of Toronto's history have contributed something to it—all the way back to the 1817 when the Grange was first built.
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daptive
Senior Member
I’ve been struggling for half an hour now to find all the facades the AGO has gone through, I can’t believe how hard it is!
After the 1918 Beax Arts building, there was a brutalist expansion in 1973 by John C Perkins, then there was a post-modern renovation in 1993 by Barton Myers, until finally the Gehry one. If anyone can find the images, it’s really jarring how different each iteration was.
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Red October
Senior Member
1920s:
early 1970s:
1979:
1993 (could only find photos of the model):
And the 2000s Gehry one we all know:
early 1970s:
1979:
1993 (could only find photos of the model):
And the 2000s Gehry one we all know:
Red October
Senior Member
I guess on Streetview this is part of the PoMo expansion, right?
daptive
Senior Member
Pretty sure all the PoMo elements were removed in the Gehry expansion, they were mostly on the Dundas side. I saw pics of it at a TSO trivia-night and it was really quite an…. Interesting sight to behold
No, @Red October is correct, the arm that stretches down Beverly Street was from the 1993 Barton Myers PoMo expansion.
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ProjectEnd
Superstar
Huh? Was the main entrance on Beverley back then?? @interchange42
Oddly Oaktree
New Member
If you're asking about the 1920s/early 1970s era, the old main entrance was still on Dundas, but is now inside the building. You can still see the old façade's arches in the lobby:
ProjectEnd
Superstar
Wow, I guess I've just never seen a picture of the Parkin exterior pre-Barton Meyers reno. I think you're a bit mixed up in that image though, the arches with the penetrating stair are on the south side of Walker Court. Dundas is on the north.
The Beverly arm was never the main entrance. The Barton Myers expansion had components in more than one spot.
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Oddly Oaktree
New Member
Yes, but no one takes pictures of the other side of the room! Haha.
The picture is more to show the arches since they are pretty similar all around the court. But if you stand in the court and look North, you'd see the ones that were part of the older façade.
...Okay, I did a bit of digging, and finally found a clean view looking North:
nightstreak
Senior Member
I'll never get over how janky that outside stair is. The curves don't even line up. It's like Frank Gehry had a vision and then the builders had poor hand eye coordination. In truth, it probably just got VE'd to death.
ProjectEnd
Superstar
Nah, nah, my fault. Posting before validating. I saw that picture and just assumed it was here without looking:
My fault entirely.
UtakataNoAnnex
Superstar
Is it the style or execution of it that you are having issues with?