do over
I visited the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) for the first time today. While it's disorienting to visit a museum that's undergoing a dramatic transformation, I'm glad to have been in it once before the change is complete.
The Frank Gehry exhibit is really good. It's a little thin for the $12 price tag - while general admission to the AGO is free right now, there's a charge for this special exhibit - but if you're into architecture, it's worth seeing. For each building or complex in the show, there's one or more of Gehry's elaborate models, plus sketches, enlarged colour photographs, blueprints, information on the design concept, and a video, either of Gehry talking about the design, or people reacting to it, or some other background.
One video is a clip of a "Simpsons" episode where Marge proposes contracting Gehry to build the Springfield Symphony Hall. (He accepts.) There's also a good CBC programme of the Canadian-born architect talking about working in his home city. Imagine being asked to re-design the museum where you first discovered art.
The best part of the exhibit is the models. Gehry's studio builds exacting models, both interior and exterior, and they allow you to see a level of detail that photographs can't express. Note to self: If we ever get back to Chicago, see Gehry's Millennium Park. On our 1999 Midwest Rust Belt Baseball Trip, it wasn't built yet.
I think it's very exciting that Toronto is undergoing a huge architectural transformation right now, including new buildings by some of the world's foremost architects. I love Daniel Libeskind's design for the Royal Ontario Museum. (It will look like this. Right now it looks kind of like this.) The Gehry AGO is sure to be a knock-out. I wasn't sure how I felt about the Sharpe Centre for Design, until I walked around it today. I don't love it, but I appreciate how original and distinct it is.
In my humble opinion, that's what the Toronto landscape needs most - bold, distinct designs, to cut through the drab, to wake it up.
The Frank Gehry exhibit is really good. It's a little thin for the $12 price tag - while general admission to the AGO is free right now, there's a charge for this special exhibit - but if you're into architecture, it's worth seeing. For each building or complex in the show, there's one or more of Gehry's elaborate models, plus sketches, enlarged colour photographs, blueprints, information on the design concept, and a video, either of Gehry talking about the design, or people reacting to it, or some other background.
One video is a clip of a "Simpsons" episode where Marge proposes contracting Gehry to build the Springfield Symphony Hall. (He accepts.) There's also a good CBC programme of the Canadian-born architect talking about working in his home city. Imagine being asked to re-design the museum where you first discovered art.
The best part of the exhibit is the models. Gehry's studio builds exacting models, both interior and exterior, and they allow you to see a level of detail that photographs can't express. Note to self: If we ever get back to Chicago, see Gehry's Millennium Park. On our 1999 Midwest Rust Belt Baseball Trip, it wasn't built yet.
I think it's very exciting that Toronto is undergoing a huge architectural transformation right now, including new buildings by some of the world's foremost architects. I love Daniel Libeskind's design for the Royal Ontario Museum. (It will look like this. Right now it looks kind of like this.) The Gehry AGO is sure to be a knock-out. I wasn't sure how I felt about the Sharpe Centre for Design, until I walked around it today. I don't love it, but I appreciate how original and distinct it is.
In my humble opinion, that's what the Toronto landscape needs most - bold, distinct designs, to cut through the drab, to wake it up.
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