More Than Two Years After Completion, Michael Lee-Chin Crystal Continues To Inspire
Two and a half years after its completion, the Royal Ontario Museum’s (ROM) 2007 addition, the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, continues to inspire both international and local reviews by travel and architecture journalists. A recent UK publication, Great Modern Architecture: The World’s Most Spectacular Buildings by English travel writer Bill Price, features the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal.
The portion of the book dedicated to the ROM highlights architect Daniel Libeskind’s design, emphasizing that the addition is recognizably in Libeskind’s Deconstructivist style and that ‘the overall result has been to create a dynamic and apparently chaotic building out of conflicting volumes which draws the attention and encourages people to visit the exhibitions within.’ The author also states that the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal ‘appears to have erupted from the ground and spread out in front of the old museum, covering parts of its exterior without actually coming into contact with it.’
Other modern buildings included in the hardcover coffee table book include the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao; the Tate Modern in London; the Louvre Pyramid in Paris; and the Jewish Museum in Berlin.
In a Toronto Star newspaper article published Nov 28, 2009, Urban Issues and Architecture columnist Christopher Hume included the Royal Ontario Museum’s Michael Lee-Chin Crystal in his list titled, “GTA’s (Greater Toronto Area’s) 10 Most Important New Structures of the Last Decade.”
“It hasn't been Toronto's year of living dangerously so much as its decade,” says Hume. “Since 2000, we have built buildings, launched projects and drawn up plans that once would have been utterly unimaginable in this city. For all its timidity and feelings of inferiority, Toronto has started to think big, take architectural risks.”
William Thorsell, ROM Director and CEO said,” Daniel Libeskind’s work at the ROM constitutes a radical shift in the status quo from most of the architecture we know. It presents a new concept of form and space, a new face of beauty in the field, a new presence in the cityscape. Many people are thrilled to experience it, as we see in a 60 per cent increase in ROM attendance since its completion, and the vitality it has brought to Toronto’s precinct of Bloor Street and Avenue Road. The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal has won accolades around the world for its design and effectiveness for this Museum in the contemporary age. Great cities must have the power to originate, and Toronto has done so with the arresting work of Libeskind at the ROM.”
Inspired by the ROM’s gem and mineral collection, Daniel Libeskind sketched the concept on paper napkins while attending a family wedding at the ROM. The design was quickly dubbed the 'crystal' because of its crystalline shape. "Why should one expect the new addition to the ROM to be 'business as usual'? Architecture in our time is no longer an introvert's business. On the contrary, the creation of communicative, stunning and unexpected architecture signals a bold re-awakening of the civic life of the museum and the city,” said Libeskind.
Considered to be one of the most challenging construction projects in North America for its engineering complexity and innovative methods, the Lee-Chin Crystal is composed of five interlocking, self-supporting prismatic structures that co-exist but are not attached to the original ROM building, except for the bridges that link them. The exterior is 25 per cent glass and 75 per cent extruded-brushed, aluminum-cladding strips in a warm silver colour. The steel beams, each unique in its design and manufacture and ranging from 1 to 25 metres in length, were lifted one by one to their specific angle, creating complicated angle joints, sloped walls, and gallery ceilings. Approximately 3,500 tons of steel and 38 tons of bolts were used to create the skeleton, and roughly 9,000 cubic metres of concrete were poured.
Great Modern Architecture: The World’s Most Spectacular Buildings was published by Canary Press in 2009 in the UK, Asia and North America. It is now available for purchase at Indigo in Canada for $19.99.