Sunday, October 7, 2007




TORONTO, Canada—A sparkly new addition to Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum, completed this summer, is already posing problems, reports the Globe and Mail.

The structure, designed by Daniel Libeskind and called “the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal,” is 75 percent glass and features no right angles. The glass has leaked, and window-cleaning costs are rumored to have increased $200,000, while the slanted walls have posed several problems: visitors have wandered out onto slanted surfaces overlooking the street, or, in one case, run up a wall tipped at 30 degrees. The space has also proven difficult to install art and artifacts in. “Daniel didn't design this building based on the collections,” said Dan Rahimi, director of gallery development. “We had to design the collections to go with the building. We have an aesthetic imperative—partly because the architecture is so strong.

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