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Architectural Record

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Libeskind’s Crystal ROM Opens
June 4, 2007

by Alex Bozikovic

Studio Daniel Libeskind is on a roll. Less than a year after its addition to the Denver Art Museum opened to much popular fanfare, if lukewarm critical reviews, another of the firm’s big cultural projects has followed suit: a dramatic expansion of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), which opened on Saturday. Though separated by 1,500 miles, the two buildings share Libeskind’s signature aesthetic of angular, crystalline forms. They also have in common a key gesture: a prow-shaped volume that reaches over public space. These similarities have led more than a few observers to wonder if the architect’s atelier is copying itself.

In Toronto, Libeskind’s new 175,000-square-foot wing—officially called the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal—faces the city’s premier shopping street and, in a contextual gesture that’s unusual for the architect, forges a connection between this thoroughfare and the original, more austere Beaux-Arts museum. “We were looking to create a lot of transparency and engagement with the city,†explains museum director William Thorsell. “Museums are typically built like fortresses, and we wanted a new, more urban presence.â€

But there’s a similar move in Denver, where part of Libeskind’s new Hamilton wing reaches across a plaza to an older section of the Denver Art Museum designed by Gio Ponti. Some Canadian critics say that this coincidence suggests that Libeskind is recycling his forms. The architect himself fueled these suspicions by employing a similar rhetoric of “crystals†when he discusses both buildings—although in Toronto, his ostensible inspiration for the structure’s shape was ROM’s huge collection of geological artifacts.

Although Thorsell dismisses such criticisms out of hand, he admits to following the Denver project closely. “Of course we’ve been there, to see how they’re doing the drywall, among other things,†he says. “It’s true that Libeskind has some language that is typical of Libeskind, just as Gehry or Calatrava or indeed Mies van der Rohe had languages of their own. But the articulation of that language at the ROM is unique. Thecladding, the finishes, the nature of the interior spaces are all quite different.â€
 
What do all these posts about the mayor have to do with projects and construction??
 
Actually, an article about the building in the ROM's own magazine ROM takes the City to task for contributing zilch funding to the project yet attempting to charge them over $2,000 for encroaching on Bloor with one of the crystals. The city has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction fees for various Toronto-based cultural bodies under construction, that it doesn't contribute to financially. When we receive our property tax assessments from the City all the wonderful things our money gets spent on are listed - yet the words "arts" and "culture" never appear.
 
Regardless of how the exterior has turned out, Torontonians have seen this building under construction, close up, for several years - and have a knowledge of what lies "beneath the skin" that is ours alone. While some of us therefore share Rochon's disappointment that the ruggedness of the bones haven't translated to the final exterior form, the interior spaces will also transform once the galleries are installed with exhibits. Any verdict on how the interior spaces "work" may be premature until we see what is put into them, and how it is done, over the next few years.
 
Actually, an article about the building in the ROM's own magazine ROM takes the City to task for contributing zilch funding to the project yet attempting to charge them over $2,000 for encroaching on Bloor with one of the crystals.


Did I miss a bylaw which obligated the city to funding for projects such as this? Furthermore, ROM encroaches on public space, so why should it not pay like everyone else? Why the sense of entitlement?


The city has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction fees for various Toronto-based cultural bodies under construction, that it doesn't contribute to financially.


Is this somehow a Toronto-only phenomenon?


When we receive our property tax assessments from the City all the wonderful things our money gets spent on are listed - yet the words "arts" and "culture" never appear.


Arts and culture is generally the domain of the elite; therefore, philanthropy should play a much larger role in funding such project (than it does now).

The city's priorities must be on 'every day' livability, especially with an already overflowing budget.
 
Arts and culture is generally the domain of the elite; therefore, philanthropy should play a much larger role in funding such project (than it does now).

The city's priorities must be on 'every day' livability, especially with an already overflowing budget.

Hey, 1995 is on the phone. It says to stop using its schtick.
 
Well even from a purely mercenary point of view, Big Arts and Big Culture can mean big bucks for the city in terms of revenue from tourists, tax revenue, jobs created, spin-off etc.
 
Arts and culture is generally the domain of the elite; therefore, philanthropy should play a much larger role in funding such project (than it does now).

I think you may have a rather narrow definition of arts and culture.
 
I think you may have a rather narrow definition of arts and culture.


The above was referring to institutional A&C, something which ROM definitely is a part of.


Well even from a purely mercenary point of view, Big Arts and Big Culture can mean big bucks for the city in terms of revenue from tourists, tax revenue, jobs created, spin-off etc.

True, and I don't dispute that; I am not sure why that means that the city should subsidise it. I am not really a 'bread not circuses' detractor in this case (although their criticism is not completely invalid), but a line has to be drawn somewhere. The ROM is not entitled to the city's money.
 
^^ Then the city is not entitled to brag about the ROM and the hogtown "cultural revolution"... frankly the city has taken a free ride on the creativity and sweat of communities that don't get diddly in civic grants. The entire 70s/80s theatre movement (that statistically helped the city claim to be number 3 in the English-speaking world) was largely ignored by the city (and the media... go figure).
 

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