After cutting out of the office’s Friday Afternoon Social Thing a bit early, I caught X-Files: I Want to Believe — which was pretty-much as I’d expected… a good story told well, the characters consistent with their experiences over the past 15 years of their lives — and on the way home pedaled to the Art Gallery of Ontario to see how the construction’s heading for its November completion.
Frank Gehry’s bold addition to the existing structure may never possess the iconic cachet of his stand-alone projects, but this addition is looking, well, it’s looking nothing less than spectacular. It’s impossible not to compare the AGO addition to that of another Toronto museum space, and this project appears to be succeeding on every level which the Royal Ontario Museum’s Daniel Libeskind addition does not.
AGO South Face, 25 July 2008
AGO South-West Corner, 25 July 2008
The Gehry design is as bold and cheeky as Libeskind’s but very much more consistent with the original structure and its environs. The south structure features an audacious use of blue-tinted, metallic scales which simultaneously gently mirror the sky and rise stridently from the park at The Grange beneath it. And the sweeping, Dundas Street façade is a surging wave of glass, metal and wood, playfully peeled up at each end to peer within.
AGO North Face, 25 July 2008
AGO North-East Corner, 25 July 2008
The gallery spaces within possess, I’m told, exquisite natural light, courtesy all that glass. Hey, weren’t we told that the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at the ROM couldn’t utilize all of the glass in the original plans because of our harsh, Toronto climate? I guess the climate a few blocks south of the ROM is much milder and more conducive to architecture which was actually planned with the structure’s site in mind.
The detail and finishing of the AGO construction — still months from completion — looks elegant and meticulous, whereas the ROM’s finishing can only be described as Typical For Toronto — mediocre and often slipshod.
Anyway, better to celebrate a successful design than to dump on a dud, right?
AGO North-East Corner (Detail)
6 comments
Oh, g’wan–I think it’s just great that we’ve got a great big ‘crystal’ sticking out of the ROM that is now 3/4 covered with aluminum siding. *Very* Toronto, I think. Needs a bit more caution tape and a few scattered traffic construction cones, but I’m sure those will be along soon enough.
ugh, I don’t see anything spectacular
Gehry’s designs are beautiful to look at. I just hope for your sake it isn’t as plagued with problems as the Gerny building we have on our campus the Stata Building (he’s currently being sued) and all the trouble they’ve had with the Performing Arts Center at Baird College.
I don’t want to rain on your parade here. It is visually beautiful and original. But his buildings have a reputation for being as water tight as a colander and maintenance nightmares.
it’s much more fun to dump on a dud, no? i agree with your assessment that gehry’s stand-alone projects are much more interesting than this addition but also agree that’s it’s a great enhancement to the current structure. there seems to be this whole trend of acquiring trophy architects to design your: art museum, community theater, office building, (insert project here) – especially in second, third or fourth tier cities desperate for some architectural symbol with bragging rights. then these world-class architects basically phone in a structure that has no connection or relevance either to the structure it butts up against or the community it lands in. perfect examples are your libeskind bomb for the royal ontario museum and the horrific addition to the walker art center in minneapolis by the – in my humble opinion – brilliant architects herzog & de meuron (reference san francisco’s deyoung museum, the tate modern in london & the bird’s nest stadium in beijing as examples).
it will be interesting to see how this gehry addition to the ago turns out in the end. but he’s a native son so this in particular should be a love letter to the city of toronto.
I like the peeled glass thingy.
The rest looks good too.
However, I’m not sure how I feel about Gehry now… I”m kinda ‘over’ him.
[...] As it turns out, when my father called I was at an early-morning sneak preview for Art Gallery of Ontario members of the new, Frank Gehry-designed expansion, about which I wrote a few months ago. [...]