Transformation AGO (5s, Gehry) COMPLETE

[billy corgan]

Thanks for the tour. The inside looks great but I still feel that the outside, especially the galleria looks tacked on and could have been integrated a little better. I look forward to exploring the galleries when I get back to TO.

 

[Archivist]

I found the outside had a tacked on look where the canopy extends out from the building, but maybe they will be making it look a bit less temporary. I also didn't like the concrete columns hitting the wood canopy, but Interchange and Shocker disagreed about they - they were OK with the concrete.

All three of us felt the re-doing of The Grange was unfortunate.

Overall, though, splendid and impressive.

 

[mysteryman]

There seems to be a lot of complaints about the tacked on nature of this building. That is not going to change because that is Gehry's aesthetic--he likes assemblages that are light and barely held together. The Guggenheim at Bilbao is like that with it's discrete forms playing off each other, and most recently the Serpentine pavilion is as well. The pavilion in fact looks like a pile of glulam beams and glass haphazardly placed together. These are similar materials to the galleria at the AGO but much less elegant.
As a design strategy the addition for the AGO was conceived as a series of new elements, purposely different--and ostentatiously so-- to all the previous phases of the building. They purposely look tacked on. It's not a look I particularly like either--it is somewhat dated--but that's what it is, a Gehry.

 

[interchange42]

As both Archivist and Benc7 have reported, what has happened at the Grange seems completely wrong-headed. It's now a modern building inside, stripped of all patina to be remade into the member's lounge. An AGO employee told me that this was the result of focus groups telling them that The Grange, which had been decorated a few decades ago by the Volunteer Committee to look how it may have looked when it was the Boulton family's residence, should instead be presented as a place for people to imagine how it looked and functioned. That is either BS or the AGO just hearing what it wanted to hear. So maybe the Grange had not been an 100% accurate depiction of its own story; what it is now, stripped of any trappings of 1800s Toronto, is a waste of a handsome, historic mansion. It deserves better. Apparently the furnishings are in storage upstairs. Rant over.

Wow, what a wonderful museum we have in the AGO now, and it ain't even finished: complete the remaining art installations, get the descriptions up, and most of all, get those sculptural staircases done, and you'll all be in love with this place. Here's hoping it doesn't take long to wrap this all up. While I imagine some work will be continuing, the AGO should look substantially more complete by Friday's public opening.

42

 

[mysteryman]

Yeah, I don't believe that either. The member's lounge was originally planned to go in behind the new restaurant. I think they just wanted a bigger dining area and just bumped the member's lounge to the only space left that wasn't already programmed as gallery space. I don't think the AGO really knows what to do with the Grange. I wouldn't be surprised if the lounge moves again in a few years...

 

[interchange42]

Agreed...

and I expect that the AGO will find itself under some pressure from its members to attempt a restoration to period for The Grange again.

42

 

[mysteryman]

The good news is that nothing was damaged during this phase, so restoration is always possible.

 

[taal]

Any clue as to the size of the AGO after this expansion?
How does it relate in size to other art galleries in North America.
I vaguely remember someone mentioning to me that after this renovation it will be one of the biggest but I find that hard to believe.

 

[syn]

There seems to be a lot of complaints about the tacked on nature of this building. That is not going to change because that is Gehry's aesthetic--he likes assemblages that are light and barely held together. The Guggenheim at Bilbao is like that with it's discrete forms playing off each other, and most recently the Serpentine pavilion is as well. The pavilion in fact looks like a pile of glulam beams and glass haphazardly placed together. These are similar materials to the galleria at the AGO but much less elegant.
As a design strategy the addition for the AGO was conceived as a series of new elements, purposely different--and ostentatiously so-- to all the previous phases of the building. They purposely look tacked on. It's not a look I particularly like either--it is somewhat dated--but that's what it is, a Gehry.

What's the rationale behind this design strategy? It doesn't make any sense. The Guggenheim and most of his other works don't seem "tacked on" at all.

 

[syn]

As both Archivist and Benc7 have reported, what has happened at the Grange seems completely wrong-headed. It's now a modern building inside, stripped of all patina to be remade into the member's lounge. An AGO employee told me that this was the result of focus groups telling them that The Grange, which had been decorated a few decades ago by the Volunteer Committee to look how it may have looked when it was the Boulton family's residence, should instead be presented as a place for people to imagine how it looked and functioned. That is either BS or the AGO just hearing what it wanted to hear. So maybe the Grange had not been an 100% accurate depiction of its own story; what it is now, stripped of any trappings of 1800s Toronto, is a waste of a handsome, historic mansion. It deserves better. Apparently the furnishings are in storage upstairs. Rant over.

Wow, what a wonderful museum we have in the AGO now, and it ain't even finished: complete the remaining art installations, get the descriptions up, and most of all, get those sculptural staircases done, and you'll all be in love with this place. Here's hoping it doesn't take long to wrap this all up. While I imagine some work will be continuing, the AGO should look substantially more complete by Friday's public opening.

42

What a huge disappointment. I never thought they'd do that to the Grange.

Great pics by the way, Archivist. I can't wait to see it.

 

[interchange42]

I am not quite in agreement that the whole scheme feels tacked on. There are bits that do scream that, one example being where the visor attaches to the Parkin exterior walls near the Dundas/McCaul intersection: the last beam that ties the two together is attached in a spot that butts up awkwardly against letters (that name the building) that were set into the walls in the 70s, while a downspout rides awkwardly along the beam then down the wall to the sidewalk...

but move underneath that visor and you are welcomed by the warmth of douglas fir that now unites much of the building through many of its stages. And when the older galleries surrounding Walker Court still scream of a past age, and the Parkin era galleries from either the east or west ends of the Dundas axis still scream 70s, the layout of the complex now makes so much more sense that it all feels integrated now, as opposed to cobbled together. Sure you aware from time to time that you are passing through galleries that have been built at different times, but big deal - that's the reality of building a major art gallery - and it works just fine.

42

 

[khris]

Thanks a lot for the interior pictures Archivist! I kind of wanted to be surprised visiting the Gallery for my first time ever, but oh well

You're not allowed to take photos inside at all? That's a policy that won't work well in 2008. Everyone has a camera now. Whether it's on their cellphone/smartphone/mp3 player or just a regular camera.

 

[syn]

I am not quite in agreement that the whole scheme feels tacked on. There are bits that do scream that, one example being where the visor attaches to the Parkin exterior walls near the Dundas/McCaul intersection: the last beam that ties the two together is attached in a spot that butts up awkwardly against letters (that name the building) that were set into the walls in the 70s, while a downspout rides awkwardly along the beam then down the wall to the sidewalk...

but move underneath that visor and you are welcomed by the warmth of douglas fir that now unites much of the building through many of its stages. And when the older galleries surrounding Walker Court still scream of a past age, and the Parkin era galleries from either the east or west ends of the Dundas axis still scream 70s, the layout of the complex now makes so much more sense that it all feels integrated now, as opposed to cobbled together. Sure you aware from time to time that you are passing through galleries that have been built at different times, but big deal - that's the reality of building a major art gallery - and it works just fine.

42

When I say it feels incoherent and perhaps tacked on, I'm referring to the exterior. From the description you provided, it seems to be quite nice on the interior.

 

[MetroMan]

Thanks a lot for the interior pictures Archivist! I kind of wanted to be surprised visiting the Gallery for my first time ever, but oh well

You're not allowed to take photos inside at all? That's a policy that won't work well in 2008. Everyone has a camera now. Whether it's on their cellphone/smartphone/mp3 player or just a regular camera.

I used my iPhone to grab some snaps of my girlfriend and myself inside. The three times that I took photos, were three times that I was told by three different people that photos aren't allowed. They're serious about this policy it seems. I don't know how the heck Archivist and his friends got away with a whole documentary on the building.

 

[alklay]

Archivist, your pictures are fantastic and probably do the best job I have seen thus far of capturing the building.

I look forward to viewing both the collection (and seeing some old favorites) and the building. I am weary though of seeing the building partially completed, complete with drywall dust and missing collections. I experienced that with the ROM and it left too negative an impact.

As for 'tacked on'. one must start with Gerhy's old California house, and the tacked on additions of chain-link fence and chicken wire, to see how much the 'tacked-on' look is part of his vocabulary.