Mustapha said:
Reading the Dewdney article above reminds me of when as a child there was much more to see in the ROM. Rows upon rows of patinaed glass topped cases of watches and clocks, firearms, gems and ancient coins.

I didn't have this experience again until I recently visited the Natural History Museum in London UK. To a lesser extent the British Museum and the Maritime Museum in Greenwich still have 'old' galleries where you can experience old school museum displays.

Sometimes I am too opinionated here at this forum but I must say that the ROM stewardship is better at cocktail parties and new wings than their proper mandate.
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Mustapha! You opinionated sentimental old bastard!

I like you.

..and of course you are absolutely right as I usually am. And just keep opinioning away. I'll let you know when you are wrong. "Rage! Rage against the Dieing of the light"..or something like that. (I'm sure somebody here won't waste a golden opportunity to correct my fractured Dillon.)
 
Some exterior views of the ROM, taken before and after the ICC Shanghai lecture on Tuesday night.

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Mongo said:
The same amount of money spent on a more conventional design would have certainly provided several times more usable floor space for exhibits than this design does.
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Apparently none of the other "conventional" designs offered as much usable space.
 
syn said:
Apparently none of the other "conventional" designs offered as much usable space.
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I disagree. The total amount of usable space might be similar, between this design and a more conventional design, but the conventional design would likely have been buildable for a fraction of the cost.
 
wyliepoon said:
Some exterior views of the ROM, taken before and after the ICC Shanghai lecture on Tuesday night.
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Any thoughts on the lecture wylie? I thought it was generally good, except that the lecturers didn't seem to arrive at any sort of meaningful conclusion. I'm all for panel discussions but I felt that the talks lacked direction apart from the propmotion of Kingwell and Pridmore (?)'s recent works.

Furthermore, I question how much we can learn from totalitarian states. While the speakers made economic connections to earlier 'capitals' (Amsterdam, Paris, New York, etc.), those places were able to change history because they transacted with the outside world. While it would be silly to say that China does not interact on a global scale, I question how much the West can potentially learn from an authoritarian state which is pursuing a model of growth which we no longer accept.
 
Any thoughts on the lecture wylie?
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I think your observations are quite right. I did enjoy the lecture, but I found that the research was not too thorough (some mistakes were made in the lecture, such as Kingwell stating as fact that the world's top 20 metropolitan areas are in developing countries... where's New York and Tokyo?). Christopher Hume was rather weak playing moderator, preferring to tell Toronto stories than getting to the points.

I did get some things out of the lecture. The lecturers pointed out the Chinese interest in facadism and symbolism, some things that even I, as a Chinese, had not thought about before. A gentleman who sat beside me at the lecture was from pre-Communist Shanghai, and he said he went to school in the French Concession.
 
Re: Gentleman from Shanghai - very cool - I came a bit late and was forced to sit beside some windbag who kept going on about how he had been to every site that was displayed.

Re: Mistakes in the presentations - I agree, besides Kingwell's top 20 cities blunder (The World's largest cities in the morphological, functional, administrative contexts all have first world cities in the top twenty - that was just a lie), he also talked at length about how Shanghai's density was far greater than New York's, while referencing a picture of New York (complete with Empire State and Conde Nast towers in the background) behind him.

All in all, I'm glad I went, I just wish I got more out of it.
 
re: Density

According to this Wikipedia list, Shanghai's Huangpu District (located in the older Puxi, which roughly corresponds to central Shanghai) has a population density that is slightly higher (about 4,000 people/sq km) than the densest part of Manhattan. However, if Shanghai goes ahead with replacing all the old neighbourhoods in that area with Toronto-style "towers in parks" and kicking out the majority of the population to the suburbs, the density will definitely go down.

Population density has very little to do with skyscrapers. Most of the districts at the top of the Wikipedia list are probably slums, not noted for high-rise buildings. I've spent quite some time at my grandparent's apartment in St. Anthony Parish, Macau (number 3 on the Wikipedia list). There are no supertall buildings in that district (anything above 40 storeys), and the majority of the buildings have less than ten storeys, mostly fronting on narrow streets and alleyways.
 
FYI everybody, there's a very interesting (and critical) thing in the current Toronto Life on the ROM Crystal...
 
... and what a stunning piece of investigative reporting it is too, breaking several major news stories:

* Some people don't like how the Crystal looks.

* It took longer to build than originally planned.

* It cost more than originally budgeted.

* Attendance figures for the incomlete Renaissance ROM haven't reached anticipated attendance figures for the completed project.
 
It was not a kind review of either the architecture or the current state of the museum. It even goes after the displays. The piece is unfortunately not online:

"The Curse of the Aluminum Crystal
The Libeskind addition was supposed to save the ROM and put Toronto on the map. The good news: it’s finally, officially finished. The bad: it caused nasty infighting, came in fabulously over budget, and is a box-office flop. Inside a $320-million reno from hell By Chris Nuttall-Smith"
 
Hatchet job.

alklay said:
It was not a kind review of either the architecture or the current state of the museum. It even goes after the displays. The piece is unfortunately not online:

"The Curse of the Aluminum Crystal
The Libeskind addition was supposed to save the ROM and put Toronto on the map. The good news: it’s finally, officially finished. The bad: it caused nasty infighting, came in fabulously over budget, and is a box-office flop. Inside a $320-million reno from hell By Chris Nuttall-Smith"
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What is it with Toronto Life these days? Why are they sticking knives in everyone/anyone? I was less than impressed.

A few random things that pissed me & my wife off:
1. Defending the old, unbelievably tired dioramas from the old dino display. Those were so cheesy it was ridiculous. The new dino display is much, much better -- particularly the fact that you can see the skeletons from Bloor as you walk up -- majestic!

2. Not mentioning, or trying desperately hard not to compliment, the good parts of the reno: The new First Nations gallery. The expanded Asian galleries, and the fact they opened up the windows to Philosopher's Walk. The new 'floating glass' vitrines, which allow you to see all the artifacts from wherever you are in the halls.

3. Pointing out the expensive apple juice, without mentioning that C-5 is an absolute jewel of a restaurant, and that the cafeteria is actually quite a nice space -- although our trips to the ROM tend to conclude at Gabby's, so Dad can have a beer...

I think they had some good points, and I think the ROM still needs more re-thinking of the new display spaces: The 'Stair of Wonders' needs a LOT more 'Wonders'. The 'Spirit Gallery' makes no sense without much, much more evocative sonic work -- whether they go with music, archival recordings, or bird songs, I don't care. But more, and louder. And, yes, they need to get a lot more of the display areas back online. It's way, way better than it was, but there's still a lot more to do before it's the museum it could be. This review sure as hell doesn't do the place justice, however.
 
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