(PETER POWER/THE GLOBE AND MAIL)
The redevelopment of the Royal Ontario Museum's McLaughlin Planetarium site, on the south end of the museum, is part of a renovation of the historic institution on Queens Park Crescent. Architect Daniel Libeskind's spectacular Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, the ROM's entrance pavilion due to open on June 2, is the most conspicuous aspect of this sweeping renewal of galleries and public spaces.
But this is hardly the first time the architectural fabric of the ROM has been revised and updated. A master plan devised around 1908, in the shape of a double quadrangle — a highly popular scheme for museums of the day — was built out, in part, by the Toronto firm Darling & Pearson in 1914. The 1914 wing stretched along the University of Toronto's Philosophers' Walk.
In 1933, the architectural office of Chapman & Oxley added more flesh and bones to the master plan by running the long present-day building along Queens Park, and connecting it with the 1914 wing. The result was a museum in the shape of an "H." Thereafter, the master plan was abandoned, and for many years little further architectural work was done on the site.
Some 50 years later, in the early 1980s, the ROM undertook its next architectural leap forward by filling in the hollows in the "H" with buildings and beginning the revision of the galleries. Though no longer considered successful by the museum, the 1980s makeover welcomed millions of visitors to the ROM's outstanding collections for about 25 years.
