In an ongoing effort to bring a little architecture to the forum, I bring you Libeskind's latest, the Royal Ontario Museum Extension, in Toronto.
From worldarchitecturenews.com:
A dramatic new wing of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) designed by Daniel Libeskind is set to open 2 June. Dubbed the Lee-Chin Crystal, the 175,000 square foot aluminum and glass clad building will house seven collection galleries on two levels, two special exhibition spaces, new retail and dining facilities and a new main entrance and lobby. Libeskind’s ‘Crystal” is comprised of five interlocking, self-supporting prismatic structures that interface with the historic buildings that embrace it. With hardly a right angle anywhere, its sloping walls create unique interior spaces with soaring volumes and such distinctive details as the “Spirit House”, a void at the heart of the building that is traversed by criss-crossing bridges. Slashing windows fill the rooms with natural light and create uniquely framed views of the cityscapes outside. The new wing is the centerpiece of the Museum’s $250 million expansion and renovation project to be completed by 2009.
...yet after the Denver museum addition all i want to say is, "yes it is very pretty, but is the skin going to look like aluminum foil?" The skin was what turned me off to the Denver museum and I hope they don't repeat the same mistakes here. The other thing that concerns me is this little niche Libeskind has fallen into. We see with alot of architects a development of a style but many mix it up enough to keep us interested, kind of like how the Beetles approached making albums. However Liebeskind seems to have fallen into this perpetual language of sharp angles and steel skin, the only time he mixes this up is with his condos which restirct his language more than museums do. Another architect who seems to be doing alot of this is Ghery, whose consistent use of his "plop" method of design, involving lots of metal curves, to me at least seems a bit too repetitive.
Another thing i want to ask is this: how does art, which normally is displayed in neutral, orthagonal environments, fare in an environment which is completely without flat surfaces? I would assume in these spaces there would be lots of added display walls, which could seriously clutter a space. This seems again alot more of "architecture for architecture's sake" kind of design. I think that kind of egotistical approach damages the urban landscape. It produces buildings that typically fail in their operation as spaces for people to inhabit and use and fail in integrating themselves into the urban fabric. At the end of the day, this supreficial means of design may produce very pretty buildings, but do they satisfy all the other parameters of a piece of "good" architecture?
I completely agree, this, and most of his recent buildings fail because of their lack of specificity with regards to the site. Libeskind lands in almost every city he designs in. In this case, the one thing that might be considered successful is the way in which Studio Daniel Libeskind integrates their architecture into the exisiting building [same with the soon to be Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco]. Those moments where the old meets the new are interesting plainly because of the wacky angles and shapes he uses...but when it comes to functionality, it is definitely lacking...
I don't like his work at the best of times, and this piece seems like it's going to fail in every respect except in bringing attention to the museum.
Now, the ROM is not an art gallery, it's more like a science centre/museum filled with historical artifacts, exhibitions about ancient times and animals, etc. The lack of right-angled, vertical walls DOES concern me, but not as much as if this were a typical art gallery.
Call me closed-minded, but I just can't get over the "slashy" windows that he uses in so many projects, that seem to be there just for the sake of being there, because it's his trademark - and a pretty weak one at that. I don't like the interface between the new and the old, either, though I'm sure when I get a close-up look when it's done, it will probably turn out to be interesting. I am in Toronto tomorrow, so maybe I'll give it another look now that it's somewhat nearing completion (or so we're told).
the novelty of the connecitons between libeskinds additions and the exsiting conditions is entertaining, but its difficult to make the argument that the novelty has any substance. If its done once, perhaps you can rationalize it, but using the same form/different itteration on several additions completely degrades the existing project's rationale.
Its as if rationale is a limited commodity. One must use it wisely and be aware of over extending a solution.
I dont particularly agree that his buildings fail because he doesnt respond to the site. I believe there are prototypical concepts that can work in many number of sites without significant alteration. However, i do think libeskind has now officially overextended his prototype of fragemented surfaces and sharp angles... Im not sure what, in this case, the form is supposed to represent, but no matter the explanation given for the concept, its automatically clear its post-rationalized crap to hide his now degrading formal explorations.
For me, its kind of ironic though, i keep bitching about the lack of rigor and contextual integration, yet what i like about this building the most is that it looks like a crystal jutting out of some rock. From a pure, formal exercise I think many of his buildings are quite pretty, yet i think they would be even prettier if he took this to another level. One of the coolest things about this building is the spectacular steelwork needed to make it.
What if he encased his buildings in glass or some other translucent/transperant material and flaunted the insane structures underneath his ugly metal skins? If he did that, i would be so enamored I would probably stop bitching about everything else. I mean look at that framework!
I was able to walk around in the Contemporary Jewish Museum while the framing was still exposed, and I must say, from a purely structural perspective, it is pretty amazing...excesive but amazing...but this can't really be contributed to the tiny Napoleonic architect...it's his consultants and his in-house minions that create these structural convolutions...they don't get paid very well from what i hear...
I stopped by this project on my way home from school today.
My impressions are... well, that it's impressive. The 'windows' (or slits, or whatever he calls them) are WAY overdone and tacky and take away from the overall form and mass. However, I was also pleasantly surprised.
The scale of this thing is not depicted well in the renderings. It's freaking HUGE. The 'main' facade, if you can call it that, projects over the pedestrian walkway and even over the street. I was probably 50 feet away and the thing STILL felt like it was going to fall over and crush me at any minute. I know that's not the most humane way to design something, but it's definitely something to behold, so long as you don't get too dizzy standing underneath it.
The cladding isn't shiny like tinfoil, either. Perhaps there was still a protective coating on it, but it was more of a dull grey. I think the shiny renderings are more than a little misleading if this turns out to be the final skin. I couldn't take any pictures 'cause I didn't have a camera with me.
All in all, it's a surreal structure from the outside. I still don't LIKE it, but from the ground plane perspective, you can't help but stop and stare.
And that's the thing about a lot of Toronto architecture these days. After decades and decades of boring sameness in the metro area, everybody's jumping all over themselves to get something crazy built, maybe without consideration of scale, context, etc. Projects in the city over the past five years include works by Libeskind, Gehry, Allsop, Foster (whose building I like), KPMB (of course)... Lots of great work thrown in for good measure.
What about this: Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
Why is no one up in arms about it? You would think the architecture community would destroy it in a riot. Has Toronto not learned from the 1992 KPMB extension to the AGO or the 1981 extension to the ROM?
God forbid the Libeskind extension may raise the bar....
"What about this:
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
Why is no one up in arms about it? You would think the architecture community would destroy it in a riot. Has Toronto not learned from the 1992 KPMB extension to the AGO or the 1981 extension to the ROM?"
????
what's wrong with the 4 seasons? explain further your highness.
the AGO extension by kpmb, you mean the Barton Myers extension?
There was nothing wrong with that, it's erasure is only Gehry taking ownership of his old hood by producing the most self-indulgent peice of architecture Toronto has ever seen. The 4 season's is a total common-sense approach, not much to complain about unless you want get superficial and judge the auditorium seating and interior - which i thought resemebled the interior of a chrysler - but its top 3 in the world for sound quality - they were using their limited funds rather wisely given they had the smallest budget to work with for an opera house project ever.
it's kindof interesting that competition for the ROM expansion. the other entries were alot more sensitive to the surround contexts, they engaged the human scale more, ti think it was the bing thom entry for example that tried to activate the pedestrian corridor next to it that had become quite a shady urban space, unsafe?... the other proposals did alot more of what architecture traditionally is supposed to do i think... but where libeskind won was through guts... win or lose, he made a statement... it's pretty radical if you think about it: a crystaline decon giant "thing' coming out of the earth and stradling the existing traditional historic facade... on the one hand, i wonder how the libeskind building will perform, whether its spaces will work or not, but one thing i'd have to say about it is that it is definitely bold...
it stood out, its the "exclamation mark" building, and i think that's what the jury wanted to see, something to put the museum on the cutting edge. on the one hand, the building is a monstrosity like it or not, that is a shitload of steel!! if you drive by that thing (take a look at that construction photo above, and now imagine you are at street level cruising along bloor street, botique shops, queen's park, and then kabooom! you run into this enormous crazy heavy heavy steel mess being erected very intentionally to create this formal exercise... its a statement... something pretty new, there are buildings that make such big formal moves, but i can't think of one that does it in the face of what i would have thought to be a pretty sensitive and conservative context...
it's a work of art, a very expensive work of art... but it is definitely very powerful... i'd imagine it will be even more so when it is completed, and occupied...
is it sustainable? that much steel, that much footprint? that much crazy whaaa... statement in its disruption of the status quo, the surrounding space beside the university's central urban campus? the sustainability thing is actually in my mind a big issue, they tore down a perfectly functional modern wing to build this... it is costly... but i don't think we can judge this thing based solely on its use of material. the reason being, while the material is not directly pragmatic or practical, not in the way that steel used to build a bridge is practical, it was a response to a market and a client and city that was thinking economically. sustainability is always also about economic sustainability, so time will tell whether this building was successful or not... now i'm not saying the building is environmentally sustainable, but one thing that it has done is, made an aging old museum brand spanking new again... and i wonder, will this uniqueness make the ROM a permanent fixture in the city? a landmark with global tourist recognition, a unique historic entity representative of this particular moment in time? the new building makes a statement about history, and about architecture... it it political?
can the bilbao effect impact an already thriving metropolis, a city that is already a multi-cultural hub?
hmmm. at first glance it just makes me tired. seems as though it's been done to death - the arm-flailing architecure. It's as though the last 20 years or so can be referred to as the semifore period in architecture.
Silverlake's Van Halen reference totally works too. If you'll pardon the mixing of metaphors, but it seems as though we're going through the big-hair period in architecure - much like eighties rock with the hair and the preening.
I wonder how the quiet gesture or the subtle intervention gets recognized...? Does it work?
Right now, in Toronto, it's all about the hair-glam architecture. There are many more new, beautiful, subtle buildings (Foster's UofT Pharmacy building is particularly good), but for the most part, yeah, it's all about waving cocksin the air, regardless of what others around think.
Allsop's OCAD and this Libeskind building demonstrate that.
On the other hand, KPMB's Canadian Ballet complex/building is breathtaking in a good way. I think it's gorgeous and serves its many purposes equally as well.
yeah- it does look like what he's done before. Maybe he should get into prefab.
but I really like the freedom tower he designed. It really had grace and a modest scale for a high rise - before SOM got its mitts on it.
P.S. love the Canadian Ballet building and other work by KPMB. Thanks for the lead slantsix. As for OCAD, I'm not sure a shock-scale brick overhead is very good urban feng shui.
regarding the image on "a daily does of imagery" today...I have finally thought twice about this building...
i think something needs to be said about this big leap forward for Libeskind...maybe the profession of starchitecture as a whole (though of course - morphosis seems to have made this leap as well already)
the intricacy of ornamentation occuring with material applications and transitions seems to me as something that is unseen and unheard of in his previous work...
this seems to go far beyond that of the single or dual material applied to aggresive forms...
the play of scale, application, surface depth and grids is quite impressive...
nice picture, i'd be interested to see that thing lit up with people in it...
but also i'd like to see how they detailed that roof, how does that thing drain?
i remember when stephen teeple / morphosis were doing the university of toronto graduate housing with its big cantelevered signage / corridor element suspended over the street, people were concerned about icicles forming there and creating a hazard... i don't know if that ever became a real problem... but now, if you go there though, its full of birdshit from the pigeons that are all housed up in there... those pigeons have a pretty sweet morphosis designed birdhouse...
May 22, 07 10:27 pm ·
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Libeskind Lands in Toronto
In an ongoing effort to bring a little architecture to the forum, I bring you Libeskind's latest, the Royal Ontario Museum Extension, in Toronto.
From worldarchitecturenews.com:
A dramatic new wing of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) designed by Daniel Libeskind is set to open 2 June. Dubbed the Lee-Chin Crystal, the 175,000 square foot aluminum and glass clad building will house seven collection galleries on two levels, two special exhibition spaces, new retail and dining facilities and a new main entrance and lobby. Libeskind’s ‘Crystal” is comprised of five interlocking, self-supporting prismatic structures that interface with the historic buildings that embrace it. With hardly a right angle anywhere, its sloping walls create unique interior spaces with soaring volumes and such distinctive details as the “Spirit House”, a void at the heart of the building that is traversed by criss-crossing bridges. Slashing windows fill the rooms with natural light and create uniquely framed views of the cityscapes outside. The new wing is the centerpiece of the Museum’s $250 million expansion and renovation project to be completed by 2009.
...yet after the Denver museum addition all i want to say is, "yes it is very pretty, but is the skin going to look like aluminum foil?" The skin was what turned me off to the Denver museum and I hope they don't repeat the same mistakes here. The other thing that concerns me is this little niche Libeskind has fallen into. We see with alot of architects a development of a style but many mix it up enough to keep us interested, kind of like how the Beetles approached making albums. However Liebeskind seems to have fallen into this perpetual language of sharp angles and steel skin, the only time he mixes this up is with his condos which restirct his language more than museums do. Another architect who seems to be doing alot of this is Ghery, whose consistent use of his "plop" method of design, involving lots of metal curves, to me at least seems a bit too repetitive.
Another thing i want to ask is this: how does art, which normally is displayed in neutral, orthagonal environments, fare in an environment which is completely without flat surfaces? I would assume in these spaces there would be lots of added display walls, which could seriously clutter a space. This seems again alot more of "architecture for architecture's sake" kind of design. I think that kind of egotistical approach damages the urban landscape. It produces buildings that typically fail in their operation as spaces for people to inhabit and use and fail in integrating themselves into the urban fabric. At the end of the day, this supreficial means of design may produce very pretty buildings, but do they satisfy all the other parameters of a piece of "good" architecture?
I completely agree, this, and most of his recent buildings fail because of their lack of specificity with regards to the site. Libeskind lands in almost every city he designs in. In this case, the one thing that might be considered successful is the way in which Studio Daniel Libeskind integrates their architecture into the exisiting building [same with the soon to be Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco]. Those moments where the old meets the new are interesting plainly because of the wacky angles and shapes he uses...but when it comes to functionality, it is definitely lacking...
I don't like his work at the best of times, and this piece seems like it's going to fail in every respect except in bringing attention to the museum.
Now, the ROM is not an art gallery, it's more like a science centre/museum filled with historical artifacts, exhibitions about ancient times and animals, etc. The lack of right-angled, vertical walls DOES concern me, but not as much as if this were a typical art gallery.
Call me closed-minded, but I just can't get over the "slashy" windows that he uses in so many projects, that seem to be there just for the sake of being there, because it's his trademark - and a pretty weak one at that. I don't like the interface between the new and the old, either, though I'm sure when I get a close-up look when it's done, it will probably turn out to be interesting. I am in Toronto tomorrow, so maybe I'll give it another look now that it's somewhat nearing completion (or so we're told).
the novelty of the connecitons between libeskinds additions and the exsiting conditions is entertaining, but its difficult to make the argument that the novelty has any substance. If its done once, perhaps you can rationalize it, but using the same form/different itteration on several additions completely degrades the existing project's rationale.
Its as if rationale is a limited commodity. One must use it wisely and be aware of over extending a solution.
I dont particularly agree that his buildings fail because he doesnt respond to the site. I believe there are prototypical concepts that can work in many number of sites without significant alteration. However, i do think libeskind has now officially overextended his prototype of fragemented surfaces and sharp angles... Im not sure what, in this case, the form is supposed to represent, but no matter the explanation given for the concept, its automatically clear its post-rationalized crap to hide his now degrading formal explorations.
For me, its kind of ironic though, i keep bitching about the lack of rigor and contextual integration, yet what i like about this building the most is that it looks like a crystal jutting out of some rock. From a pure, formal exercise I think many of his buildings are quite pretty, yet i think they would be even prettier if he took this to another level. One of the coolest things about this building is the spectacular steelwork needed to make it.
fullsize pic
What if he encased his buildings in glass or some other translucent/transperant material and flaunted the insane structures underneath his ugly metal skins? If he did that, i would be so enamored I would probably stop bitching about everything else. I mean look at that framework!
I was able to walk around in the Contemporary Jewish Museum while the framing was still exposed, and I must say, from a purely structural perspective, it is pretty amazing...excesive but amazing...but this can't really be contributed to the tiny Napoleonic architect...it's his consultants and his in-house minions that create these structural convolutions...they don't get paid very well from what i hear...
I'm just glad to see Eddie Van Halen is back to work - seeing as how he designed the interior...
lol. That interior rendering is kinda nasty.
I stopped by this project on my way home from school today.
My impressions are... well, that it's impressive. The 'windows' (or slits, or whatever he calls them) are WAY overdone and tacky and take away from the overall form and mass. However, I was also pleasantly surprised.
The scale of this thing is not depicted well in the renderings. It's freaking HUGE. The 'main' facade, if you can call it that, projects over the pedestrian walkway and even over the street. I was probably 50 feet away and the thing STILL felt like it was going to fall over and crush me at any minute. I know that's not the most humane way to design something, but it's definitely something to behold, so long as you don't get too dizzy standing underneath it.
The cladding isn't shiny like tinfoil, either. Perhaps there was still a protective coating on it, but it was more of a dull grey. I think the shiny renderings are more than a little misleading if this turns out to be the final skin. I couldn't take any pictures 'cause I didn't have a camera with me.
All in all, it's a surreal structure from the outside. I still don't LIKE it, but from the ground plane perspective, you can't help but stop and stare.
And that's the thing about a lot of Toronto architecture these days. After decades and decades of boring sameness in the metro area, everybody's jumping all over themselves to get something crazy built, maybe without consideration of scale, context, etc. Projects in the city over the past five years include works by Libeskind, Gehry, Allsop, Foster (whose building I like), KPMB (of course)... Lots of great work thrown in for good measure.
I still frickin' hate the windows, though.
What about this:
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
Why is no one up in arms about it? You would think the architecture community would destroy it in a riot. Has Toronto not learned from the 1992 KPMB extension to the AGO or the 1981 extension to the ROM?
God forbid the Libeskind extension may raise the bar....
Queen, are you in Toronto? Have you seen the Four Seasons Centre?
I hear a lot of talk about how crappy it is. I haven't been inside, but obviously you can see a whole lot of it from the outside.
I don't know much about it. Would you mind explaining what everyone's complaining about there?
acually yeah, i only saw that one picture on the home page for it but it looks kinda cool with its floating floorplates and whatnot. Please elaborate.
The construction pic is great, Apurimac. Thanks for posting that. Half-built Libeskind, like half-built Gehry, is better than fully-built.
"What about this:
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
Why is no one up in arms about it? You would think the architecture community would destroy it in a riot. Has Toronto not learned from the 1992 KPMB extension to the AGO or the 1981 extension to the ROM?"
????
what's wrong with the 4 seasons? explain further your highness.
the AGO extension by kpmb, you mean the Barton Myers extension?
There was nothing wrong with that, it's erasure is only Gehry taking ownership of his old hood by producing the most self-indulgent peice of architecture Toronto has ever seen. The 4 season's is a total common-sense approach, not much to complain about unless you want get superficial and judge the auditorium seating and interior - which i thought resemebled the interior of a chrysler - but its top 3 in the world for sound quality - they were using their limited funds rather wisely given they had the smallest budget to work with for an opera house project ever.
crash landing in toronto.
it's kindof interesting that competition for the ROM expansion. the other entries were alot more sensitive to the surround contexts, they engaged the human scale more, ti think it was the bing thom entry for example that tried to activate the pedestrian corridor next to it that had become quite a shady urban space, unsafe?... the other proposals did alot more of what architecture traditionally is supposed to do i think... but where libeskind won was through guts... win or lose, he made a statement... it's pretty radical if you think about it: a crystaline decon giant "thing' coming out of the earth and stradling the existing traditional historic facade... on the one hand, i wonder how the libeskind building will perform, whether its spaces will work or not, but one thing i'd have to say about it is that it is definitely bold...
it stood out, its the "exclamation mark" building, and i think that's what the jury wanted to see, something to put the museum on the cutting edge. on the one hand, the building is a monstrosity like it or not, that is a shitload of steel!! if you drive by that thing (take a look at that construction photo above, and now imagine you are at street level cruising along bloor street, botique shops, queen's park, and then kabooom! you run into this enormous crazy heavy heavy steel mess being erected very intentionally to create this formal exercise... its a statement... something pretty new, there are buildings that make such big formal moves, but i can't think of one that does it in the face of what i would have thought to be a pretty sensitive and conservative context...
it's a work of art, a very expensive work of art... but it is definitely very powerful... i'd imagine it will be even more so when it is completed, and occupied...
is it sustainable? that much steel, that much footprint? that much crazy whaaa... statement in its disruption of the status quo, the surrounding space beside the university's central urban campus? the sustainability thing is actually in my mind a big issue, they tore down a perfectly functional modern wing to build this... it is costly... but i don't think we can judge this thing based solely on its use of material. the reason being, while the material is not directly pragmatic or practical, not in the way that steel used to build a bridge is practical, it was a response to a market and a client and city that was thinking economically. sustainability is always also about economic sustainability, so time will tell whether this building was successful or not... now i'm not saying the building is environmentally sustainable, but one thing that it has done is, made an aging old museum brand spanking new again... and i wonder, will this uniqueness make the ROM a permanent fixture in the city? a landmark with global tourist recognition, a unique historic entity representative of this particular moment in time? the new building makes a statement about history, and about architecture... it it political?
can the bilbao effect impact an already thriving metropolis, a city that is already a multi-cultural hub?
not a very good photo, but here's vancouver architect bing thom's entry to the competition:
hmmm. at first glance it just makes me tired. seems as though it's been done to death - the arm-flailing architecure. It's as though the last 20 years or so can be referred to as the semifore period in architecture.
Silverlake's Van Halen reference totally works too. If you'll pardon the mixing of metaphors, but it seems as though we're going through the big-hair period in architecure - much like eighties rock with the hair and the preening.
I wonder how the quiet gesture or the subtle intervention gets recognized...? Does it work?
Right now, in Toronto, it's all about the hair-glam architecture. There are many more new, beautiful, subtle buildings (Foster's UofT Pharmacy building is particularly good), but for the most part, yeah, it's all about waving cocksin the air, regardless of what others around think.
Allsop's OCAD and this Libeskind building demonstrate that.
On the other hand, KPMB's Canadian Ballet complex/building is breathtaking in a good way. I think it's gorgeous and serves its many purposes equally as well.
everyday i hate libeskinds stuff a little more
You know what? It looks so much like the CRAP he's done before.
I HATE it too.
yeah- it does look like what he's done before. Maybe he should get into prefab.
but I really like the freedom tower he designed. It really had grace and a modest scale for a high rise - before SOM got its mitts on it.
P.S. love the Canadian Ballet building and other work by KPMB. Thanks for the lead slantsix. As for OCAD, I'm not sure a shock-scale brick overhead is very good urban feng shui.
agreed. I don't think I've ever said I like the building, but I have said that it's done its job of garnering attention. And that's about it.
pretty pic:
I agree its getting to be a little stagnant. But to the rest of the world it'll look crazy new.
I also agree that these would be much nicer if he pushed his aesthetic a little farther.
I do love the Denver museum, though. Watching that go up was amazing and the cantilever is really something to marvel at.
It's inspiring, even if you don't like it, and makes you think about what can get done (particularly in the US).
regarding the image on "a daily does of imagery" today...I have finally thought twice about this building...
i think something needs to be said about this big leap forward for Libeskind...maybe the profession of starchitecture as a whole (though of course - morphosis seems to have made this leap as well already)
the intricacy of ornamentation occuring with material applications and transitions seems to me as something that is unseen and unheard of in his previous work...
this seems to go far beyond that of the single or dual material applied to aggresive forms...
the play of scale, application, surface depth and grids is quite impressive...
Another one from wvs at daily dose:
nice picture, i'd be interested to see that thing lit up with people in it...
but also i'd like to see how they detailed that roof, how does that thing drain?
i remember when stephen teeple / morphosis were doing the university of toronto graduate housing with its big cantelevered signage / corridor element suspended over the street, people were concerned about icicles forming there and creating a hazard... i don't know if that ever became a real problem... but now, if you go there though, its full of birdshit from the pigeons that are all housed up in there... those pigeons have a pretty sweet morphosis designed birdhouse...
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