[interchange42]

There seems to be no movement on the exterior after a rapid build up of work, removing the cladding, cutting away some of the metal, delivering new parts… and then nothing for weeks and weeks.

I imagine work is progressing inside. Is the whole shebang in the renderings, including the lily pad staircase and skylight in the Hyacinth Gloria Chen Crystal Court being revealed all at once or are they doing this in phases?

And is the court keeping the name after all these substantial changes? I recall articles written about how Michael Lee Chen didn’t end up contributing the money he promised. They even took down his picture from the Spirt House — which itself won’t exist after the renovations.

IIRC, Lee Chen made good after his fortunes rebounded some years after the 2008 recession. His pledge was made in good faith, but apparently was not going to come all at once and was therefore dependent on a continuing strong economy, which ended up being interrupted for some years.

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[interchange42]

The treatment of the ceiling of the soon-to-open Junction Triangle Library, as per this shot by @rdaner in The Campbell thread...

...is how the exterior of the ROM should have been approached per the manufacturer's inability to control the tone of the cladding. That amount of randomization would have obscured their incompetence... but their incompetence extended to their ability to hide it?

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[ProjectEnd]

 

[jje1000]

Always interesting to see how aggressively this intervention intersects the geometry of Libeskind's design, which itself unapologetically inserted itself into the older wings of the museum.

 

[ProjectEnd]

Always interesting to see how aggressively this intervention intersects the geometry of Libeskind's design, which itself unapologetically inserted itself into the older wings of the museum.

Fun to see the steel all exposed like this again. I was in undergrad at Vic when the original Libeskind building went up and recall how crazy this angular presence looked when compared to the even- older Terrace Galleries (which I loved in their own way).

Throwback Thursday: A Look Back at the Royal Ontario Museum Before the Crystal | SkyriseCities

We take a trip down memory lane at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

skyrisecities.com

 

[Northern Light]

A few, taken this evening, on August 14th, 2025: