The ROM

January 20th, 2008 News

A couple of years ago, we spent a weekend in Toronto and stayed at the Intercontinental on Bloor just west of Avenue Road, across from the ROM. The skeleton of Daniel Libeskind’s ROM Crystal was just going up at the time, and it looked as if a crane had accidentally dumped a bunch of steel girders, and that they had landed in a somewhat haphazard manner.

It’s now done and open, so we checked it out Saturday afternoon. From the outside, it looks like Salvador Dali got a hold of the plans of the original building and had at them:

From the inside, it’s rather impressive. The best way to describe it is to invite you to remember Superman’s Fortress of Solitude from the 1978 movie. The only thing missing was the green crystal that made Marlon Brando talk.

It’s cool how the building reflects its surroundings:

Here’s a shot of the atrium just inside the ticketing area:

Third floor. Dinosaurs.

It’s one of those areas that’s crowded enough that you’ll wish: (1) you had checked your coat; and (2) you had checked the stroller, too. The Crystal is perfect for this exhibit, because you focus on its details, rather than the building.

del.icio.us Reddit Slashdot Digg Facebook Technorati Google StumbleUpon Yahoo Bloglines

RSS 2.0 Respond Trackback

2 Responses to “The ROM”

  1.  

    Mark Says:
    January 21st, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    i too love this building. his art museum in denver looks similar and has been proven to be a bit of a dissapointment but the contrast of the crystal against the old building in TO is fantastic.

    architects are trying to find the new way to design museums so they’re not white boxes-liebeskind and gehry (hes doing a new art musum a few subway stations south of the ROM) are the best right now at breaking free from the old form.

  2.  

    minterests Says:
    January 21st, 2008 at 6:20 pm

    I love it too and am looking forward to a trip north to take a look. Thought you might enjoy the photo here:

    http://www.rom.on.ca/crystal/index.php

    I would love to see some kind of a signature building in our area, maybe, just maybe one can be included in the new plan for UB.

Got something to say? Drop it here.

WNYM seeks to provide a forum for snarky opinions and open discussion. However, we do need to have some ground rules around this joint. In order to make our comments useful and interesting, the following guidelines have been established for comment users. In short; don't act like a libelous or hate-filled tool and we'll get along just fine.