Built to inspire: creative designs and innovative structures are converting Canada's largest city into a true mosaic of architecture and culture.

AuthorJermanok, Stephen
PositionTORONTO

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

There's nothing in the least bit harmonious about Daniel Libeskind's new addition to the block-long stone and brick Royal Ontario Museum. Shards of aluminum and ribbons of glass jut out onto the sidewalk with knife-like precision, without care or need for right angles, just piercing zigzags in the air created by heavy materials. Approach the building from a distance and it feels like the original 1914 structure has been attacked by some killer prism in a B movie. Yet, judging from the mass of people gathered around the building snapping photographs like the paparazzi, the result is a success. Libeskind's bravura has taken the wrecking ball to the staid and the old and led the city of Toronto into a 21st-century architectural renaissance.

Writer Wyndham Lewis once referred to Toronto as a "sanctimonious icebox," but a lot has changed in the past three years to alter that image and draw attention to Toronto's current moniker, "Design City." Libeskind's soaring glass exterior, called the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal building, made its debut in 2007. Diamond & Schmitt's Four Seasons Centre, home to the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada, opened to the public a year prior. Will Alsop's Tabletop building, which houses the Ontario College of Art and Design, looks like it's standing on multicolored crayon legs created by Crayola. Nearby is the Art Gallery of Ontario, which reopened in November with a new building designed by Frank Gehry.

To say that Toronto architecture lacked inspiration before the arrival of the latest starchitects would be misleading. Walk up from the underground city into the Alien Lambert Galleria and you'll find Santiago Calatrava's exquisite atrium created in 1992. Running a city block between two office towers, the white-painted steel and glass arch is an oasis of light and warmth in the frigid Canadian winter. Calatrava's tall arches pay homage to the Gothic influence on the city. Libeskind pushes the envelope further, but his design could just have easily been plopped down in Tokyo as Toronto, with little or no reflection on the city's past.

Inside Libeskind's design at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), white paint subdues the ribs of steel and light pours in from strips of glass. A large prehistoric turtle skeleton hangs from one of the asymmetrical walls, signifying that the building is a natural history museum that specializes in dinosaurs, gems, and Egyptology. Libeskind's...

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