6.6K 
As of February 20, 2024, when visiting the Royal Ontario Museum, you'll want to enter via the Queens Park entrance, as you'll be greeted by hoarding along the Bloor Street sidewalk. That's because this morning a Valentine's gift to Torontonians was announced by Josh Basseches, Director & CEO of the venerable institution, and work on a $130 million, three-year project to upgrade the visitor experience will get going right away.
The institution, the largest and most visited museum in Canada with over a million visitors a year, has grown in stages at the southwest corner of Bloor Street West and Queens Park. Its first section, designed by architects Frank Darling and John A. Pearson in a combination of Italianate and Neo-Romanesque styles, opened beside Philosopher's Walk on the St George Campus of the University of Toronto on March 19, 1914.
The building came H-shaped when the first major expansion was constructed, opening on October 12, 1933. The design by Alfred H. Chapman and James Oxley eschewed the Italianate and Neo-Romanesque style of the first wing for a neo-Byzantine style, referencing the historical progression of Western Civilization from Rome to Byzantium. This section, with its golden mosiac tiled rotunda entered off of Queens Park, became the main public face of the building for decades.
On October 26, 1968, the McLaughlin Planetarium opened to south, attached to the museum via a bridge over a driveway that connected the street to a courtyard created within the south side of the H. The white-domed Brutalist structure was designed by Allward and Gouinlock. The courtyard was soon filled in as work to expand the museum's facilities began in the late 1970s, with the Gene Kinoshita and Mathers & Haldenby-designed Curatorial Centre opening in 1984, while the Queen Elizabeth II Terrace Galleries opened at the same time in the space on the north side of the H, facing Bloor Street. (The planetarium, which still stands, ceased operations in September 1995 following provincial funding cutbacks.)
The museum's most prominent expansion, however, opened in 2007 when the Queen Elizabeth II Terrace Galleries were replaced by the Deconstructivist Michael Lee-Chin Crystal designed by Daniel Libeskind. Controversially, the expansion not only rejected the traditional masonry and right angles of the original wings, but brought a radically angled and mostly silver aluminum-clad addition that seems to burst out of the ground while obscuring parts of the earlier structure.
The use of the word 'crystal' in the name of this addition along with an early model led the public to expect more glass encasing the new structure, but the sensitivity to light of most of the objects displayed within the galleries caused the number and size of windows to be reduced, while many of those that made it through revisions to the design were eventually closed up. The lack of windows on the exterior, along with the challenging angles of the crystal's walls have been considered the source of much the controversy.
Another of the aspects of the Libeskind design that has generally been considered a major deficiency was the new main entrance from Bloor Street. Criticized for being too cramped and lacking enough prominence, it is the first of the issues that the new project addresses.
The renovations that will start shortly will close off this area for about three years as a new entrance along Bloor Street plus majorly revamped lobby and atrium spaces will take place inside. Designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects, the $130 million will provide steps and a ramp facing Bloor, rising to a newly flat lobby area, avoiding the inclined state of the current lobby. The new front steps, ramp, and doors will also sheltered under a broad canopy that will protect the entrance from falling snow and ice in the winter, an issue that has left much of the Bloor Street forecourt closed following extreme weather since the Crystal addition opened.
Once inside, visitors will find a much more widely open space with particular dramatic objects from the collections prominently displayed.
Within the ceiling of the lobby, an oculus will be cut that will open the space to the height of the dramatic dinosaur gallery above. Steel girders that hold up the extraordinary Libeskind structure and which are currently hidden within walls will also be featured around the space, both expressing the engineering work that allows such avant garde architecture while also broadening the space. Ticketing for exhibitions and upper level galleries will be found in pocket areas off the main lobby.
Continuing into the centre of the museum, the atrium space, currently lit with two diamond-shaped skylights, will be completely opened up to the sky by a new diagrid supported skylight. Galleries on upper floors will also have wall space overlooking the atrium reduced to increase views of the collections from area to area.
The atrium, as with the new Bloor Street entrance, are being named for the Hennick Family Foundation created by Jay and Barbara Hennick, which is donating $50 million to the ROM, the largest gift the museum has ever received. To the east side of the atrium, to be named Hennick Commons, a new staircase will offer viewing platforms to better appreciate the dramatic architecture, while also providing sinuous and practical new ramps from the higher floors of the middle of the H to the lower floors of the east wing, easing circulation for those wishing to avoid the stairs.
Much more will be going on inside, and we will look to return with more news of the renovations soon, but we will end this report back outside again and facing the corner of Bloor and Queens Park, where Hariri Pontarini have designed by reflecting pool and fountain with Dan Eusen of Waterarchitecture Inc. The pool may become a skating rink in the winter, but will create a sense of arrival and welcome outside the building year-round.
Besseches declared that this three-year project is just the start of other envisioned upgrades in the future to further improve flow between levels, better showcase the collections, and better connect the museum to the city, both in terms of layout and through more community engagement. The Royal Ontario Museum will continue to operate during construction — just remember to enter from Queens Park.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on this development, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database file, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
* * *
UrbanToronto has a research service, UrbanToronto Pro, that provides comprehensive data on construction projects in the Greater Toronto Area—from proposal through to completion. We also offer Instant Reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from initial application.
| Related Companies: | B+H Architects, CCxA, Hariri Pontarini Architects, LRI Engineering Inc. |
