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The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto needs no introduction. Since its opening in 1914, the building’s Italianate exterior and avant-garde additions by Daniel Libeskind have made the building a favorite along Bloor Street and Queens Park. By the attention. This week, the self-proclaimed art museum in Canada announced OpenROM: a renovation project led by Hariri Pontarini Architects that, according to the designers themselves, will “reintroduce ROM to Toronto.”
Hariri Pontarini’s design proposal improves on existing architectural interventions and aims to make the gallery and museum entrances more accessible and visible. Other renovations will add 6,000 square feet of galleries, create more public space and add a new water element. The company has previously worked with the museum on a project involving the restoration of the original Queen’s Park entrance. OpenROM continues a series of transformation projects at the site over the past few years, including an improved outdoor plaza and the opening of the Wilnamarch Gallery.
On the Bloor Street facade, a new bronze canopy extends outward from the Libeskind Studio-designed Michael Lee Chin Crystal Building. In the renderings, metallic elements blend seamlessly with their counterparts; a fusion of angles and fragmented forms.
Visitors entering from Bloor Street are quickly greeted by a brightly lit lobby. A circular hole is planned in its center, allowing for upward viewing of the exhibition space.
“We will bring daylight and views deep into the interior and create porous connections to Bloor Street, the ground-floor public spaces, and the gallery itself,” Siamak Hariri, founding partner of Hariri Pontarini Architects, said in a statement.
Just outside the improved lobby, visitors will gather in the new Henniker Commons. The four-story lobby will be designed to be flexible and accommodate performance and lecture events as well as a café.this resistor The atrium’s sculptural circulation volume is a three-story building composed of stairs, platforms and ramps. It serves as a hub between the historical and modern components of the museum. Its bronze finish and glass frontage match the diagrid glass ceiling above and the canopy extension outside.
At Hennick Commons, new openings in the walls of the existing historic building and the Crystal Building allow glimpses into the surrounding exhibition spaces.
Construction on the project is about to begin and is expected to take three years to complete. Once completed, the museum will keep the ground floor free and open to the public. The renovation is funded by private funds and a $50 million effort from the Hennick Family Foundation, the largest in the museum’s history.
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