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Transformation AGO (5s, Gehry) COMPLETE

Oooohhhh - I really hope that is the case. Where did you find that out?

It's been nominally interesting to see the dear front of the gallery flatly torn off and flushly filled in - but the stakes (ahem!) are are going to go way up with the building of the galleria.
It will be probably the defining feature of the new gallery, if not functionally, then at least aesthetically, and it's going to be make-or-break...all the worse for the distant worry of it ending up being a blandly scaled, monotonous hull. Either inside or out. At worst, we could end up with something that looks like a rustic convention centre-cum-skating rink. At the better end of things, with long elegant curves of laminate wood and glass, it could be fascinatingly rugged and refined, all at once.

I dislike the inessential, inversely curved sections at each end of the gallery - "the ears", I've been calling them. They seem like two meagre, offhand gestures designed to satisfy those who wanted something with more 'gehryesque'. Personally, I liked the streamlined unity (maturity?) of the initial render. I hope they work out well in real life and seem less superfluous, although I think they will function less well as a bit of formal architectural play than as useful hangers for the AGO's advertising banners.

That snark aside, I'm really excited about seeing the galleria form...how it's handled, the details, the glass, the light, the wood, the whole thing.
 
Try thinking of the "ears" as rebellious Gehruptions against the squareness of the project, the site, the city: a rage against the dying of the lightheartedness.
 
My concern is that the canopy will look too tacked on- not relating well to the building behind it. However judging from the materials I think that it will look quite good and addsome unity to the facade which to me was quite a hodge podge, and an uninteresting hodge-podge at that. Surely this will be an improvement over the old facade which definitely could be mistaken for a "convention centre-cum-skating rink".

The most interesting features for me are on the interior, particularly the spiral staircases. Looking forward to seeing this all come together over the next year or so.
 
ago expansion

What i like about the new sculpture gallery ramp is that it gently curves up and down at the same time that it curves in and out. I'm sssuming that the canopy will follow the same curves which will give it a gently dynamic feel- Gehry-esque you may call it but also cool, I think. He wasn't hired for nothing.
 
My nomination for stupidest story of the year...

--------------------

Gehry's big boom box
How would you like to sleep under the crane of the AGO reno?
By TOM FISCHER

What does a $250 million art gal lery of Ontario Frank Gehry renovation project sound like?

Like a three-ring circus? The strained silence when the highwire walker takes that pivotal first step? Perhaps like a rush of bull elephants when they trumpet and roar into the centre ring. Or the motley painted clown with all the bells, horns, clangs and bangs?

Almost halfway through the AGO's renovation, I have the luck and inconvenience of living across the street from this urban circus on Beverley. If you appreciate the colossal arm of a crane dangling its deadly payload over your street 15 metres from your window, I've got it. If you like romance, how about a crane with muted dots of light as night falls, and the sound of lampposts being ripped out of concrete jarring me from sleep.

Sometimes it's the mystery of what I hear but can't see that disturbs most. It sounds like a dentist's drill, but what is it really that I'm hearing at 8 am Monday morning? There's a sudden bang, and my mind starts to drift and muse. Did some construction worker just drop a tonne of cement, or was that steel? Is anyone hurt?

Sometimes, with all the clanging of gates, I think I'm hearing a bike theft in progress. I look out my window, but it's just the workers milling around again. My mind is playing tricks on me.

On top of all this, a swirling dust cloud rises from the backhoe's crushed rock payload and the rush-hour horn-blowers set up a cacophony from Beverley's reduced lanes.

One day I decide to call the police. The constable at the other end of the line advises me to bite the bullet. When I push, I can tell he's irritated. He gives me the noise complaint bylaw office number at City Hall. I call.

Steven Miller of the city's property standards noise complaints investigation unit reminds me that the bylaw allows noise from 7 am to 7 pm weekdays and 9 am to 7 pm weekends. Nothing can be done, he says, if the racket is confined to those hours.

Film companies pay residents for the inconvenience they cause while shooting. Since I work mostly from home, I approach the AGO with a request for coffee and lunch money so I can get away when things are particularly loud. Communications and government relations rep Beverley Carret gently declines. Instead, not quite on theme, she offers me a free AGO membership.

EllisDon senior project manager Jack Stelpstra assures me that the builders use electric instead of diesel-powered bobcats, which are louder and produce more fumes. But nothing can be done, he says, about jackhammers or drill bits hitting the concrete.

Was the AGO not beautiful enough before? Noise pollution: the price of supposed progress. When does the right to pollute with sound violate others' right to silence? Peace.
--------------------

Right to silence? In a city? One should be so lucky to watch a Ghery building rise outside their window.
 
I too read the story and felt like finding out the address of the guy and banging pots outside his window starting at 7 am. And no offence, but what is he doing still in bed on a weekday at 8 am and what right does he have to complain about noise at that hour? (yes I know some people have different work shifts).

I have walked past that site many times and I am amazed at how quiet the construction is.

If he wants peace and quiet during working hours, he should move out of the city. (a bit of a mean rant on my part but the complaints were insulting)
 
If one considers that article of his to be his "work", I would only hope that the AGO put out some serious noise to put him out of action so that the rest of us can have some visual and intellectual peace.

AoD
 
This *is* NOW we're talking about. The ads for the schoolgirl hookers at the back are often more entertaining (and coherent) than their feature articles.
 
Exactly! Fischer shows zero understanding of the place of the AGO within the city, and how it could have a place in his life. I suppose that in a perfect world, all those living in the immediate vicinity of a great art gallery would be avid art enthusiasts, and would be willing to suffer a little for art's sake during the construction phase...

I do understand him not wanting to put up with more noise than necessary... but Fischer seems to be questioning the entire expansion of the AGO just because there's some noise related to the process.

He's a bit of a dolt.

42
 
mysteryman said:
^ yes, the third floor of the new tower is an event hall.

I don't know about the canopy, but the huge curved wood beams of the 'Galleria Italia' along (the Dundas facade) will start going up in a couple of weeks.
Click to expand...

They are using wood for the exterior? Have they thought of the sun, the rain and the snow??
 
The "white noise" of the heating/cooling system just turned off in our office, and what a blessing it is - everyone just sighed, aaaahhhh, and relaxed .... Funny how one gets used to noise, even quiet background noise that you realize really isn't quiet at all once it stops. There aren't many places in town where you can bask in absolute silence; the few that exist are engineered to enhance the beautiful sounds that voices and instruments create.
 
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