The Crystal (fully named as Michael Lee-Chin Crystal) is part of the expansion and renovation project undergoing at Royal Ontario Museum located in Toronto, Canada. It is built between 2002 – 2007.
It is designed by architect, Daniel Libeskind and Bregman+Hamann Architects. This structure is the highlight of the $270 million expansion and renovation project. The Crystal comprises five interlocking, self-supporting prismatic structures that interface with, but are not attached to, the original historic Royal Ontario Museum buildings.
The design, selected from among 50 entries in international design competition, saw the award-winning Terrace Galleries torn down and replaced with a Deconstructivist crystalline-form clad in 25% glass and 75% extruded-brushed, aluminium-cladding strips in 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.
The building is named after Michael Lee-Chin who donated $30 million towards its construction.
It houses the new main entrance to the museum, a gift shop, a restaurant, a cafeteria, seven additional galleries and Canada’s largest temporary exhibition hall in the lower level.
The Crystal’s canted walls do not touch the sides of the existing heritage buildings, save for where pedestrian crossing occurs and to close the envelope between the new form and the existing walls.
Although designed to conform to existing height restrictions and maintain sight lines along Bloor Street, the Crystal, at certain points, cantilevers over the setback and into the street allowance.
The building’s design is similar to some of Libeskind’s other works, notably the Jewish Museum in Berlin,
the London Metropolitan University Graduate Centre,
and the Fredric C. Hamilton Building at the Denver Art Museum.
(These structures above designed by him have the same characteristics with the Crystal, Toronto, you may want to know more about them too, but I will just explain on the latest masterpiece from Daniel Libeskind, The Crystal)
The overall aim of the Crystal is to provide openness and accessibility. It seeks to blur the lines between the public area of the street and the more private area of the museum. The goal is to act as an open threshold where people as well as artifacts animate the spaces.
The main lobby is a three-story high atrium, named the Hyacinth Gloria Chen Crystal Court. The lobby is overlooked by balconies and flanked by the J.P. Driscoll Family Stair of Wonders and the Spirit House, an interstitial space formed by the intersection of the east and west crystals, intended as a space of emotional and physical diversion.
What do you think of this structure?
I personally thinks that this structure has its own uniqueness, its own star of architecture (that’s why I called it as starchitecture). Very contrasting to the exisiting museum building which is designed in traditional architecture styles, this modern striking structure really stands out. It looks very agrresive to me, something expressing out of boundary. The form is cool. The exterior silver colour enhances its modern appearance while interior white colour gives purity and formality to the museum building. Anyway, I don’t like the structure to be on the place, looks very uncomfortable, but I knew the design is wanted to be something odd out of usual.
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