Like its collection, the architecture of the Royal Ontario Museum covers a lot of ground. In the decades between the opening of the original west wing on March 19, 1914 and the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal in 2007, the ROM has both documented history and made it.
Though many tend to think of the museum as a single architectural entity, the ROM is actually an ensemble, an organic series of buildings, each one a product of its time and place, and each one connected to the others.
The story of the architecture of the ROM is also the story of Canadian culture, if not, as the institutional motto puts it, “through the ages,” at least for the last century. For architecture, that 100 years was a period of enormous upheaval.
When the museum was incorporated in 1912, the modern movement, which gave birth to the world we inhabit, was barely out of the womb. Though Ludwig Mies van der Rohe would be designing glass towers by the early 1920s, architects were generally content to recycle the past. They worked in a constantly shifting series of revival styles, each more elaborate and fanciful than the next. Gothic, Romanesque, Classical, Georgian, Second Empire were used and reused regularly.
The building stock of old Toronto pretty much sums up the way we were. The city’s deepest affection was for Gothic in its various incarnations, but one needn’t look far to see other styles. The museum mixes many of these moments into a single structure.
The first building, the west wing, is an exuberant Romanesque Revival palace that speaks loudly and proudly of civic optimism. Though war loomed, this richly embellished piece was created by the province in a growing city acquiring a new sense of its own importance and power.
The building was long, narrow and decorated with balconies, large arched windows and details almost too small and high to be noticed. Inside, the galleries were large and light-filled. The result was a kind of wunderkammer , a room of wonders more than appropriate for exhibiting the city’s treasures.
Located on what was then the edge of Toronto, the west wing was also situated close to the University of Toronto, with which it would be associated until the late 1960s.
From the start, its dual mandate — natural history and culture — meant the ROM spread a wide net. Besides collecting fossils and animal specimens, it also had important holdings in Chinese artifacts, and European furniture and furnishings. Somehow, they all had to be displayed in a way that made sense to the museum’s growing audience.
The opening of the east wing in 1933 marked the arrival of what would be the face of the museum for decades. Looking onto Queen’s Park, the imposing structure incorporated elements of Art Deco with Gothic and neo-Byzantine detailing that gave it a decidedly multi-historic air, which coincided nicely with the idea of the museum as a place devoted to the past.
The Rotunda served as the main entrance until the Crystal appeared more than 75 years later. Richly embellished with a procession of historic personages and mythical creatures, the front doors led into a dazzling atrium held up by limestone columns and topped with gold-leaf tiles. It was (and is) a space of transition; here the visitor left ordinary life behind and entered a world of extraordinary things and beautiful objects.
First was the Armour Court, highlighted by a series of murals by Sylvia Hahn. It transported visitors (especially young boys) to the realm of Walter Scott and Howard Pyle. On one wall, Richard the Lionhearted is depicted at a medieval jousting match. Today, only the murals remain; the armour has been moved upstairs where much of the ROM’s European collection is on display.
By far the most controversial addition was Daniel Libeskind’s Crystal. Most Torontonians seemed to hate it even before construction began. Certainly, it isn’t the sort of thing the city is used to; Libeskind’s angular, almost angry design is characterized by precariously tilted walls and randomly patterned strip windows. Rising from the ground at unexpected angles, the aluminum-clad Crystal makes a bold statement that cannot be ignored. Though it contrasts violently with the historically informed architecture of earlier times, Libeskind’s addition defiantly brought the ROM into the 21st century.
Keep in mind that museums around the world have turned to architecture to make themselves relevant and attract attention, if not crowds. Contemporary cultural institutions have woken up to the role buildings can play. Ever since the advent of Frank Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim in 1997, architecture has featured prominently in the creation of the image and identity of museums.
Despite the exterior drama, however, the interior feels unresolved and even awkward. The sharp angles render much of the new space unusable and there are leftover rooms that serve no apparent purpose.
On the other hand, moving the main entrance to Bloor has brought new life to one of the city’s main drags. The new ROM piazza — if that’s the right word — enhances the pedestrian possibilities of the street and provides an obvious meeting place for locals and tourists alike.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the ROM is how it has managed to remain true to its various components while all around it has changed so completely. True, galleries have been updated and altered beyond anything they once were. But one of the museum’s finest qualities lies in its ability to reconcile complexity and contradiction, and tie disparate parts into a unified whole. More than most, this is a building that adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
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