August 2025.
The Royal Ontario Museum is the largest and most-visited museum in Canada. It is best known for its crystalline addition by Daniel Libeskind, an odd, intrusive design that does not respond to the existing building whatsoever. I think “the Crystal” reflects a priority to have some starchitect-designed eye candy to draw visitors, even if said eye candy looks better than it actually functions.
The Royal Ontario Museum is located at 100 Queen’s Park in the University District neighborhood of Toronto, Ontario. It is bordered by Bloor Street to the north, University of Toronto’s law school to the south. Queens Park (the road) and the Lillian Massey Building to the east, and the Varsity Centre to the west.
History
1914 western wing of the ROM. (Protect Your Boundaries)
The Royal Ontario Museum was conceived by “a small group of Torontonians” in the early 20th century. After convincing Ontario’s government and the University of Toronto to fund the project, the ROM Act was passed in 1912. The original building (the western wing today) was designed in an eclectic union of the Romanesque Revival and Italianate styles by Darling and Pearson, and it was completed in 1914 at a cost of CA$400,000. The museum officially opened on March 19, 1914, led by the governor-general Duke of Connaught. The first exhibits came from the holdings of the Museum of Natural History and Fine Arts at the Toronto Normal School, as well as objects collected by professor Charles Trick Currelly.
Eastern wing of the ROM, which faces Queen’s Park. (Wikimedia)
The eastern wing, which faces Queen’s Park today, was designed by Chapman and Oxley in the Byzantine Revival style. It opened in 1933, despite the Great Depression, using local materials and largely hand labor at a cost of CA$1.8 million. The foundation was dug by hand, and workers had to alternate weekly due to the high amounts of labor required.
In 1947, a law was passed that repealed the 1912 ROM Act, dissolved the ROM as a body corporate, and established a twelve-member museum board within the University of Toronto to operate it. However, in 1968, it was reestablished as an independent entity. At the same time, the newly completed McLaughlin Planetarium opened next door.
The Queen Elizabeth II Terrace Galleries, which Libeskind’s addition replaced. (TorontoJourney416)
The museum’s second addition was a late Modernist design known as the Queen Elizabeth II Terrace Galleries. The project consisted of telescoping galleries to the north and a curatorial center (which still stands) to the south in the void between the museum wings and the planetarium. It was designed by Gene Kinoshita and firm Mathers & Haldenby, and the addition opened in 1984.
The McLaughlin Planetarium was closed in 1995 due to budget cuts. The building was used by the Children’s Own Museum between 1998 and 2002, and the ROM then used it for offices and storage until 2009, when it was sold to the University of Toronto. It was slated for demolition as early as that year, and in 2014 it was planned to be replaced by a museum complex. This project has been either canceled or postponed, and as of 2025 the planetarium still stands.
Libeskind’s sketch on a napkin of the addition’s massing. (ROM website)
An expansive renovation project to the museum began in 2002, which added new exhibits and upgraded the interior galleries while restoring certain obscured portions of the historic buildings. A third addition was also planned to replace the Terrace Galleries, designed by Daniel Libeskind after winning an international competition. It is known as the Michael Chin-Lee Crystal officially, named after a donor towards the project. Libeskind’s addition opened in June 2007 and the entire renovation project cost CA$270 million.
The ROM is currently being renovated to adjust some issues with Libeskind’s design. It had severe water leakage issues, which is being addressed in the renovation project, as well as a larger skylight, additional staircases, and a redesigned entrance on Bloor Street.
Photos
I mostly focused on The Crystal for this one and missed the 1914 wing entirely. Oops. Anyways, here’s the east wing from Queen’s Park:
The unusual ornamentation in the tympanum and column capitals marks this section as Byzantine Revival architecture.
Cool relief around the eastern entrance, showing Egyptian, ancient Greek, ancient Roman, and Gothic architecture:
Note the little medieval-like reliefs here:
Northern end, with the partially dismantled Crystal:
This thing really does look like a UFO crashed into the building. It is very controversial among the public.
I will concede that it actually doesn’t mess with the original buildings, but it really is a mess that doesn’t relate to the original at all. Different materials, forms, and no apparent axial/proportional relationship. It looks like Libeskind modeled a bunch of cubes, rotated them at odd angles, and shoved them through his Rhino model’s ground plane.
Seriously, why the heck are there all these oddly shaped and oriented ribbon windows?
Prisms surrounded by scaffolding:
It just encroaches on the original museum for no apparent reason.
**In some of the coming photos, you will notice an orangeish tint. My camera’s light balance at the time was calibrated to a gray card in neon purple lighting for an old photography class project, which I failed to reset afterwards. I only noticed this discrepancy and rectified it months later.
The east entrance is marked by this Art Deco-influenced mosaic ceiling. The tesserae are back-painted glass:
The central seal reads “THAT ALL MEN MAY KNOW HIS WORK”.
Cool stained-glass window over the doors:
One of the balconies overlooking the atrium:
From the ground floor:
I like this griffin relief and the detailed, colorful patterns surrounding:
Overlooking the detailed brickwork of the 1914 and 1933 buildings from Libeskind’s featureless white form:
Oculus…is it an oculus if it’s square?
Blind arch and lunette window:
Cool transom window over the opening between galleries:
One of the galleries, with gilded lettering and an arch spanning the passageway:
I like the vaulted ceiling here, which is probably contemporary but works well contextually.
Detailed Byzantine column capital:
These last few shots will focus on the interior of the Crystal. It made for good abstract photography:
I think the contrast between white walls and black mullions is cool here:
Tiny window at floor level--the kids probably love this:
Looking up the staircase:
What is it with starchitects and designing pretty buildings that don’t function well…
Sources:
https://www.rom.on.ca/about-rom
https://www.torontojourney416.com/royal-ontario-museum/
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