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July 3 - July 10, 2011 |
Building destinations
New architecture invigorating arts and culture
By Mark Curtis
If this is the summer you and your family are staying close to home, one way to celebrate your “staycation” is to visit one or more of Toronto’s many new cultural buildings. Recent high profile re-designs of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), as well as the opening of the new Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts suggest a local cultural renaissance generations in the making.
Los Angeles-based architect Frank Gehry set off the “starchitect” trend about 15 years ago when his inventive forms for the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain turned a relatively obscure destination into a tourist hotspot. Hoping that Gehry could duplicate the Spanish success story in Toronto would have been too much to ask, but the new AGO certainly has its Gehry signature touches.
The main glass and wood Dundas Street façade, for example, showcases Gehry’s fondness for sculptural architectural forms. The interior of this main façade is of special interest to Italian Canadians: the 450 foot long Galleria Italia, defined by glass and Douglas fir elements, was in part possible thanks to $12 million in donations from local Italian families.
Along with an impressive spiral staircase in the AGO’s Walker Court, Gehry’s re-design included a new four-storey south wing, clad on the exterior with shiny blue titanium. That gesture is definitely not your grandmother’s Toronto.
The subtext to the AGO project is that the internationally-acclaimed Gehry was born and raised just blocks from the historic art gallery. His family moved to California when he was in his late teens, but Gehry still swears an undying allegiance to the Leafs.
More controversial than Gehry’s AGO re-design is Daniel Libeskind’s inventive building composition at the new ROM. Love it or hate it, the new ROM design is quickly becoming a signature international image of Toronto.
Open since 2007, the centerpiece of the American architect Libeskind’s design is the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, a series of five interlocking prism-shaped structures that reach a height of 10 storeys. The exterior is a combination of glass and silver-coloured brushed aluminum and standing below its seemingly impossible angles inspires respect for its construction, whether or not you’re a fan of the building’s design.
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