Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Architecture: Royal Ontario Museum Addition - The Worst of Architectural Designs?



The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. Sure, there were a lot of Wal-Marts thrown up in the Aughts, but Daniel Libeskind's addition to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto surpasses the ugliness of bland functional buildings by being both ugly and useless. His aluminum-and-glass-clad crystalline forms grow out of the building's original 1914 structure, and from the street it's dramatic. But go inside and you need a map to move around its irrational and baffling dead spaces.

And where do you put art in a room of canted walls? Curators seem as baffled and frustrated by it as casual visitors. And it cost only $250 million.

Please click here to see the Washington Post Article.


Toronto Mayor Miller says:
"The Crystal's interesting," he said. "I think it will be interesting to hear people's opinions. There's going to be strong opinions on both sides."

CBC article says opinions on the architecture are divided. Click here

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