So I went to see Liebeskind's Crystal ...

Thanks, Tico!


I always judge personal impressions by people I know better than some critics in e.g. magazines.

I'd noticed recently some nice phtos from the opening here, and thought that this useum had to be added on my "must-visit-list" if/when I come to Canada.

Your description of your visit reminds what I felt and thought after I'd visited a highly praised museum here, Frank Gehry's MARTa Herford: there, too, I noticed those "small signs of wear and damage" ...

Oh!!! I've been waiting for your reaction to it! Have saved some links of critics' takes. OK, now I'll go back and read what you said...

Tico, I bet if we went through the museum together, or maybe separately but met afterwards at a cafe, we'd have been on the same page..

I can be pretty adventurous re buildings; there's one planned for, I think, Paris, by, I think, Jean Nouvel, that I'm looking forward to. And I can be pretty crabby about them. I remember being crabby about the Tate addition here on a2k, and I might be in-modification-of-my-opinion on that at present, maybe just wanting at this point to doodle in a small change re building connection.

On Libeskind, I've gotten a generally negative view of my own, amongst all the positive and negative reviews, of his Denver Art Museum building. (I can't recall if that is all new, or attached in some way to the old museum). My strong negative feeling is that that is not a functional space for 'hanging' or appreciating art in its many forms - it is a functional space for seeing the building as art, whether or not it succeeds in the latter.
Of course, this is all without my seeing and being in the Denver building (which I gather makes some feel dizzy.)

It seems the ROM addition has this in common with the Denver building, re the primary function... but that may be surmising from afar, not once but twice.

I would be interested in what curators have to say about various architects' museum buildings - if they would do so publicly. My immediate impression is that there is respect for the varied work of Richard Meier, Renzo Piano, Gehry and the Bilbao, Stephen Holl, and others re the exposition of art as a function combined with architectural interest. But that's a quick guess. Maybe I'll start a thread on form and function..... and start a arch and art photo search.

I haven't read all those links I've saved, nor Walter's link yet. Back later on that.

Hey, Walter -- if and when you come to Toronto, definitely put it on your top ten things to visit, perhaps more for the exhibits and collections than the architecture. Number one on your list will be moi, of course! :wink:

I was just looking again at those top two photos that I posted, wondering what happened between the competition-winning entry and the reality. I remembered our guide yesterday claimed that Liebeskind's vision was the old museum giving birth to this brash energetic child. I wince. I snort. If we want biological references, I think it's more like the bluebird old museum wondering where in hell this cuckoo came from.

Osso -- the saving grace for the display spaces in the museum is that most of the work is 3-dimensional and won't need to rely on the walls. For an art gallery it would be hell.

Looking forward to your form & function thread, osso.

oy oy oy - back off sister!

~~~

I'm looking forward to taking some time in the autumn to check out the inside of the crystal. I'm quite taken with your assessment with it, Tico.

For now, I'll continue to consider it from the outside (I still like the way it looks/feels when you drive 'under' it).

Ran across this article on two relatively adventurous/relatively new museums, one by Holl and one by Libeskind -

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6087518


I think I'm going to have to go check out the Hamilton building, Libeskind's addition to the Denver Art Museum. Who knows, I may end up eating my past words and liking it.




Edit to add ArcSpaces photo essay on the Nelson Adkins Art Museum addition (Bloch building) by Steven Holl (in Kansas City).
Please don't copy the photos, ArcSpace is rather adamant about that.

http://www.arcspace.com/architects/Steven_Holl/nelson1/nelson1.html

it looks very odd welded onto the older building, I'm obviously not seeng the whole thing but I just don't think it gels

drove past it, was under impressed.

Update on the ROM -

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071003.wrom1003/BNStory/Entertainment/home


Leaks, woes a smudge on Crystal's sparkle
VAL ROSS
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
October 3, 2007 at 1:00 AM EDT

Good thing it was a dry summer. The new Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto's most talked-about new edifice, leaks.

At least, it did leak. Water penetrated the north end of the long window of the C5 restaurant, and puddles have appeared near windows on the third and fourth floors.

The ROM's CEO, William Thorsell, pushed to open the new Daniel Libeskind-designed Crystal and the rest of the renovated ROM on June 1. As construction accelerated, the contractors responsible for installing the Crystal's cladding system warned that temporary seams around windows might leak. In August, they mopped up and repaired the problems.

As winter approaches, fingers are crossed that there will be no more puddles, and that the Crystal's cladding, designed to prevent it from turning into an avalanche-maker, will function as well in cold reality as it does in theory. But it's clear, four months into the Crystal's life, the new spaces pose huge challenges, and leaks are the least of them.

Far more daunting are the problems of mounting exhibits in the strange new spaces, ensuring public safety and budgeting for the new reality.

There are rumours that the Crystal's oddly shaped, difficult-to-access windows have increased window-cleaning costs by $200,000, a figure ROM's executive director of capital development and facilities, Al Shaikoli, disputes.

"But it is considerable," he admitted. "In the old days, our window-cleaning budget was next to nothing."

Safety issues are a surprise. "We didn't predict human behaviour," Mr Shaikoli said. On the June weekend of its grand, all-night opening, ROM staffers discovered that, particularly after the bars closed, visitors seemed more interested in the Crystal as a playground than as architecture. Staff were alarmed to see people crawling out on windows slanting over Bloor Street, apparently testing their strength.

"Mind you, these galleries were naked spaces," Mr. Shaikoli said. "Once they're filled with artifacts, people will be more respectful." Display cases will soon be installed in the paths of future adventurers.

Another discovery was a trail of footprints most of the way up a fourth-floor wall that rises at a 30-degree angle. "Probably a kid took a run at it," speculates Dan Rahimi, director of gallery development. Baseboards and stainless steel barriers are being installed to signal that a wall is a wall, even if it's not on the straight and narrow.

"One of our major bugbears was that William wanted everything open and accessible," says Janet Waddington, assistant curator of paleontology. "But you can't do that - the Toronto public is extraordinarily destructive."

Even in the old dinosaur galleries, says Ms. Waddington, people used to reach across railings to pat the prosaurolophus bones. In the ROM's Crystal dinosaur gallery, two ancient marine reptile skeletons, a pleiosaur and a mosasaur, have been suspended from an overhanging face of the Crystal (the ceiling is too high), which puts their irreplaceable old bones within arm's reach. By the time the gallery opens in December, a plinth or base underneath, surrounded with barriers, will keep the public's hands at bay. "It has been horrendous," said Ms. Waddington, "but very exciting."

The problem of installing artifacts in a space with no vertical walls challenged Hiroshi Sugimoto, the first artist to be exhibited in the ROM's fourth-floor Institute for Contemporary Culture. So, he designed a curving wall 4.3 metres high and 27.5 metres long, fitted with special lighting, to counteract the angular architecture. Total cost to the ROM: about $200,000. The wall was recently removed to make room for a new show of aboriginal contemporary art that opens on Saturday.

Special new display cases have been bought to match the galleries, some with trapezoidal shapes. As well, the renovation has opened the entire building, old and new parts, to more daylight, which risks bleaching museum artifacts. So the museum has acquired special blinds that filter out 96 per cent of ultraviolet light, as well as blackout blinds that block exterior light.

"Daniel didn't design this building based on the collections," said Mr. Rahimi. "We had to design the collections to go with the building. We have an aesthetic imperative - partly because the architecture is so strong."

Spent a few hours at the museum last Saturday and dined at C5 (a restaurant on the 5th floor) that evening. It was my first time inside in some fifteen years, and I hadn't even driven by the crystal until then.

Maintenance must be a nightmare. I hated the side(ish) entrance from outside, to C5's elevator access. It was a disconcerting space to walk through...I found it...confining, unattractive...cheesy.

I had expected more glass, and was initially disappointed by that as well, but I must say I developed some appreciation when I viewed it from the street later that evening. It was freezing out. With collar up, and my gloved hands deep in my pockets, I shivered from foot to foot for only a minute before butting out and running back in, BUT, I'll go back for another look, probably in the fall.

From the street at night the permanent dinosaur exhibit was a treat, and as I scurried to an adjacent property in an attempt to see things more clearly, found the restaurant on the 5th floor. It grows out the top floor of the existing structure...like...a...crystal Wish I could have braved the cold a lot longer. I was starting to like it.

I'll look for some links.

c5

Having trouble posting the link for some new photos that have been added to the ROM's website. There's more than 100 of the crystal...I'll try again later.

Just saw this post, joeblow. I'll see if I can find the link later...

Try as I might, I can't get a proper link happening. If you're still interested osso, under 'Publications and Digital Media' there's a "ROM images" link. That will take you to a new window which, if you scroll down slightly, will allow you to finally link to the Michael Lee-Chin crystal images.

R.O.M.

Interested, being lazy.

Finally made it inside the Crystal when the hamburgers were in town a couple of weeks ago.

I quite liked the effect, except for the very round-about route we had to get to the Sapphire, as mrs. hamburger was using a wheelchair and not all of the staff knew how to manage the small elevator lifts between some levels.

Still love it from outside and like it on the inside.

I'll be back on Friday with the Empress and a few other friends, for the Doors Open event. Will try to check out a few more 'angles' then.

The acoustics in the new agora are fabulous - as are all of the sightlines. Great space.

Apparently all of the galleries are now open. I'm looking forward to another run at it.

We sat outside and had hot dogs after the Doors Open event. I like the sculpture/seats. It worked quite well for privacy/community - and the seats have a great view of the Bloor Street show.

one bone to pick with the ROM - not to do with the crystal - unless this is how they're trying to pay for it

knapsacks are free to check
coats are $1
if people stuff their coats/jackets in their knapsacks and check the knapsack, they charge $1

wtf

seems stoopid to aggravate people before they actually get into the museum - because some of them will just walk away (happened both times I was there this month - people got p**d-off about the coat check policy and walked out of the museum)

Yep. Me too.

( I wonder why it's free to check a knapsack)