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

[Urban Shocker]

But would the Post's critic still love the new mall if it was converted to a museum? It probably wouldn't be difficult to do, because the spaces the designer boutiques occupy don't appear to be all that different from the ROM's versatile Crystal galleries, none of which are custom-designed for specific installations - the dinosaurs could be moved elsewhere in the ROM, for instance ( this is already their third location since the Museum was founded ) if it became necessary.

 

[syn]

I have to admit, I like the cladding on the Vegas project a lot more than the ROM's. That would've looked amazing here.

 

[adma]

I stand corrected and should have done my googling before the fact rather than after. Indeed the truncated tetrahedron was one of the defining features of EXPO67 and not in the US dome.

That having been said, is this the image we want to show the world in 2010? Maybe it is..

Well, keep in mind that there's even a Canadian pre-history to the tetrahedron, going back to Alexander Graham Bell's experiments with kites...

 

[old boy]

The Washington Post's comments may be attributed to Crystal envy. Who cares anyway ?

 

[Silence&Motion]

How did you come to such a judgement? Are you even familiar with all of Libeskind's other works? How is, for example, SF Jewish Museum a replication of the ROM? Or Berlin Jewish Museum, for that matter?

The Jewish Museum in Berlin is completely different than the ROM! In Berlin, these jagged windows clearly represent the "SCARS" of the holocaust...

Whereas the jagged windows are the ROM are definitely the "EDGES" of a "CRYSTAL".

And the shape of the Denver Art Museum is not "CRYSTALLINE", but rather "MOUNTAINOUS". Because, you know, the Rockies are around there somewhere.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

S&M:

If you compare DAM and ROM, you might have a case - but taking Berlin Jewish Museum and saying that is is similar to the ROM couldn't be more wrong - the plan of the buildings, the use of spaces, and the underlying themes can't be more different. The design vocabulary have similarities, of course, but you can say that for all the architects with a signature style. It's like saying that Gehry's AGO is a replication of Guggenheim Bilbao, Walt Disney Hall, etc.

AoD

 

[pman]

AoD's post is terrific - if we have to live with the Liebeskind/Thorsell monstrosity we might as well make fun of it.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

S&M:

If you compare DAM and ROM, you might have a case - but taking Berlin Jewish Museum and saying that is is similar to the ROM couldn't be more wrong - the plan of the buildings, the use of spaces, and the underlying themes can't be more different. The design vocabulary have similarities, of course, but you can say that for all the architects with a signature style. It's like saying that Gehry's AGO is a replication of Guggenheim Bilbao, Walt Disney Hall, etc.

AoD

I partially agree - you're certainly right to say Libeskind likes using Crystals and Gehry likes using big, weird piles of titanium and Degas likes painting dancers and James Cameron likes making action flicks etc. etc. etc.

In this specific instance, however, it's obvious that a lot of the success of the AGO is in that Gehry did NOT replicate his usual style. At first glance the Bilbao and Disney Hall are clearly by the same guy. The AGO? Not so much.
The consensus seems to be that the constraints he worked under gave us something surprisingly wonderful.

My main prob with Libeskind isn't that he keeps building crystals but that (As Silence&Motion pointed out) he keeps coming up with bullshit excuses to justify them. We can debate the merits of the ROM Crystal, and that's fine. But the idea that it was inspired by a walk through the ROM's crystal galleries is nothing less than a straight-up lie. That's what gets my goat!

 

[ProjectEnd]

The Jewish Museum in Berlin is completely different than the ROM! In Berlin, these jagged windows clearly represent the "SCARS" of the holocaust...

Whereas the jagged windows are the ROM are definitely the "EDGES" of a "CRYSTAL".

Superficially yes, but there is are deeper forces at work there. To inform where the lines or 'scars' would go, Libeskind connected the residences of famous historical figures in German Judaism using a map of Berlin, then placed the resulting pattern on the facade of the museum itself. The ROM's slit windows were the unfortunate result of budget cuts as Libeskind had originally proposed far larger expanses of fenestration.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

To inform where the lines or 'scars' would go, Libeskind connected the residences of famous historical figures in German Judaism using a map of Berlin, then placed the resulting pattern on the facade of the museum itself. The ROM's slit windows were the unfortunate result of budget cuts as Libeskind had originally proposed far larger expanses of fenestration.

I totally agree. But then the question is, given that the "scars" we ended up with on the ROM facade look similar, doesn't that cheapen the legitimate meaning of the Berlin work?

If it were true that the ROM design was inspired by the museum's crystals, how is that they could lead Libeskind to something so similar to the map you described?
And, also assuming the ROM rationale were true, how could a Las Vegas mall end up with something so similar, right down to the lighting used in the hallway (as seen at Torontoist)?

I don't think Libeskind is untalented or a hack or anything, but the more of these he does, the more he negates the impact of the serious work he's done. He owes it to himself (I think) to tell his clients, "I ain't doing no more crystals!"

(That said, had the original window-heavy ROM plan gone forward we might not be having this discussion...)

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Actually there were images of crystals having light beams refracted within that was used during the ROM design process (I think it was in a past issue of Rotunda). Now I don't take them very seriously myself, but if you want a justification of those patterns, it does exist...

AoD

 

[Urban Shocker]

Yes, I've just tried tried to find them online, but couldn't. A lecture at the Museum a few years ago on how the Crystal design evolved used them, too.

Here's Danny Boy from that article the Walrus published in February 2004:

Where does the recurring crystal shape come from? “I have no idea,” Libeskind says, laughing. “Intuition, you draw something. Forever you draw something and you’re stuck. Architects don’t have hundreds of ideas, or writers, or Mozart even. They pursue one idea. Where it comes from, who knows? But I like the precision of the geometry, I don’t like the blobby indeterminate approach. I like architecture that is very crisp and very definite and kind of uncompromising in its relationship to the sky, to the horizon, the profiles that it presents, the massing of it.”

 

[Urban Shocker]

... in fact, here's how one intrepid reporter described that process, after the In the Skin of a Building talk in May 2006:

* ROM Steve talked about how they evolved a design languge by projecting lights on the surface of crystal shaped models. They transposed the proportions and feel of the surface shapes into the building. From outside cladding to inside, the walls are 4 feet thick. He described the way rain and snow run off is done. Snow is broken up as it slides off the building because the upper edges of the extruded cladding are slightly upturned. They used models in wind tunnels, and submerged in water, to figure out where snow will gather and the structural engineers worked from that.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

From the Star:

Federal cash injection gives ROM 2 new galleries

The Royal Ontario Museum will add two permanent galleries and revamp the bat cave with $2.75 million from the federal government.

Private donors are matching that donation to help build the new galleries, which will feature artifacts from Rome and Byzantium that are currently in storage.

"The only thing more exciting than the public exhibits at the ROM is to go behind the scenes and see the great collections they have," Transport and Infrastructure minister John Baird said at the ROM after announcing the funding. "I'm excited to see that more of those will be open to the public."

Salvatore Badali, chair of the ROM's Board of Trustees, said only 5 per cent of the ROM's collection is currently on display.

"Due to limitations around square footage, many things are not seen in public," he said. "This substantial support is so important."

The work is expected to be done by 2011, and will add 8,000 square feet to the permanent gallery space. The biggest gallery, at almost 6,000 square feet, will be the Eaton Gallery of Rome. The Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Gallery of Byzantium will be right beside it, in the centre block of the third floor. The area is currently used for temporary exhibits.

Baird called the project another "good step" in "getting the economy moving."

The federal support comes from the infrastructure stimulus fund.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainmen...cash-injection-gives-rom-2-new-galleries?bn=1
_____________________

Great news. Don't recall that revamping the bat cave was in the original plan. Also what of the Earth and Early Life galleries? ROM's collection of Burgess Shale certainly merits more than two sad looking display cases tucked into a corner.

AoD

 

[Urban Shocker]

They're still scheduled to go in that area that's now used as an event space, according to the grand plan. The gallery I'm looking forward to is 20th Century Design.