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

I was there yesterday afternoon for an hour. The Dinosaur and Mammals galleries were very busy - I could barely hear the commentary on those touch-screen animations for all the squealing kiddies everywhere. By spring, all the Crystal galleries should be open.

The third floor space where the 20th Century Design, Byzantium and Rome galleries will go is open space now. There's a small display with a few 'teasers' from these galleries.
 
Eyesore of the month

Many of you guys have been fooled by this barbaric addition, but James Howard Kunstler recognized it for what it really is as far back as December 2006.

Eyesore of the Month

December 2006

Royal Ontario Art Museum addition by Libeskind

The new addition to the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, by Daniel Libeskind -- scoring a two-in-a-row coup for the architect/savant on EOTM.
Why are all those people standing around in the foreground gaping at this spectacle? They are from the Royal College of Physicians, trying to figure out a treatment plan. The stuffy old gentleman of a museum has developed a horrendous steel and glass tumor. It has become the "Elephant Man" of museums.
Now, you may ask yourself: why is this sort of thing acceptable to the Guardians of Culture? The answer may be that it sends a truthful but subliminal message (which, alas, we are misinterpreting) that the mis-use of technology has become the fatal disease of civilization.
Interesting to note: the page announcing this on the ROM's own site, does not contain a picture of the new addition. In fact it states: "Daniel Libeskind's winning design (as proposed in the architect's written submission) is entitled The Crystal." Hmmmm. Written submission? Like, he wrote three paragraphs describing the idea without any drawings?

 
urbandreamer said:
Lotsa old white (dinosaurs) ppl--fitting since the ROMbarn interior is all white and boring!

Those Dino's look like they're in a cage struggling to get out.

Terrible! E-
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Terrible is too kind a word for this claustrophobic space..... Slanted columns cutting the view of the skeletons, awkwardly narrow display areas, low ceilings, etc....Bring Teperman Demolition in as soon as possible, please!
 
JoeRoe, you are going to have an interesting time here at UT....
 
Many of you guys have been fooled by this barbaric addition, but James Howard Kunstler recognized it for what it really is as far back as December 2006.
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Dammit! I never knew I'd been fooled all this time I was liking it.
 
We've all been tricked by a highly safisticated propaganda system designed to manipulate us into liking this crystal thing, using word magic, misleading overrated renderings that reshape your synaptic, i am now awaken from my long slumber and dream like delusional state of liking the mikal leeee chinstrap crystal, (crystals in my urine) .
 
Another indicator of the practical and rather conventional nature of Libeskind's reno is the fact that his design is the only one of the shortlisted finalists that didn't propose demolishing the 1934 linking wing at the middle of the building's 'H'-shaped plan. And, with the Crystal, the ROM stays the course of the original expansion plan that dates from when the building opened in 1914 by linking the north end of the 'H'. In the process, it corrects problems caused by the radical new direction set by the Terrace Galleries addition of the early 1980s.
 
Regarding the cramped feeling of the Dino gallery, I still think that it should and could be moved to the top floor galleries of the crystal which have vaulted ceilings reaching somewhere from 20 to 40 ft or more in some areas.
 
Why? There won't be enough space up there to display many of them, in those two smaller galleries. And their heads are hardly bumping against the ceiling where they are now.
 
It just feels really cramped now. It's obvious that they didn't know they had a barosaurus when they designed the gallery.
 
I like the fact that the barosaurus takes up so much of the gallery: make the space too large, and the barosaurus would have seemed lost in it. That goes for everything in the new dinosaur galleries too. It's like booking too large a room for a party: have 50 people show up for a shindig in a place that seats 150, and it will feel empty. Put those 50 people into a place that's built for 48, and it will feel crowded and fun. Some people would rather not have crowded, but I think that works here. Kids seem to love it - there's something to see everywhere they turn.

42
 
Indeed. I followed the same approach with my last party - and I removed most of the chairs, so people had to keep moving around and making new friends.

Wee Gordo was lost in the museum for 40 years - we don't want to lose him again.
 
Urban Shocker said:
Another indicator of the practical and rather conventional nature of Libeskind's reno is the fact that his design is the only one of the shortlisted finalists that didn't propose demolishing the 1934 linking wing at the middle of the building's 'H'-shaped plan.
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I've a naif's question here--why *did* the other shortlisters propose demolishing the hyphen? What's the problem with it?

Maybe that's also what the jurors asked...
 
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