It Ain’t Bilbao: Frank Gehry Unveils the New Art Gallery of Ontario

Frank Gehry, perhaps the world’s most celebrated living architect, returned to his roots Wednesday when he unveiled the $195 million redesign of the Art Gallery of Ontario, located near the Toronto neighbourhood where he was raised.

“The best things in life are worth waiting for,” AGO president A. Charles Baillie told the throng of reporters and dignitaries crowded into the gallery, waiting to get the first peek of this highly anticipated project.

Playing on the collective hopes and fears of the crowd — perhaps the biggest turnout for an architectural happening in Toronto history, including Daniel Libeskind’s Royal Ontario Museum redesign — downtown councillor and AGO board member Olivia Chow remarked to the audience, “I can’t wait to see your expressions.”

External shot of the proposed redesign of the AGO, including glass and titanium veil. — Photo courtesy of AGO

When the moment of truth arrived and the veil was lifted, there was a brief pause before the inevitable applause. Gehry’s vision for the gallery, dubbed Transformation AGO, was perhaps far more conservative than many had expected. It must have been a relief for those critical of Gehry’s unusual, heavily sculpted motifs.

The most striking change is a curved glass and titanium veil that stretches across the gallery’s Dundas Street facade, spanning 600 feet long and rising 70 feet above street level. Gehry, who appeared not entirely enthusiastic about the project, even joking that “meeting Mats Sundin was the best part of the day,” conceded that the new facade might be partially inspired by hockey equipment: A skate, or perhaps a visor.

Frank Gehry deflects questions from the throng of reporters and guests. — Photo: djc Features

Gehry, diffidently addressing questions from the media, noted that the major metamorphoses are from the “inside out.” He compared his latest creation to the DG Bank headquarters in Berlin: Also designed by Gehry, the exterior is relatively sober and rationalist, but the interior will reveal his famous curvilinear flourishes.

Since Gehry had to work with an existing building this time, his chief mission was to expand and transform the actual galleries while deferring to the AGO’s surrounding environment — and to its allotted budget.

In this respect, his mission was more or less accomplished. The new AGO will have 40 per cent more space to view art, including 240 per cent more space for photography.

“I was hoping to not to make too much of an intrusion,” Gehry told reporters. “Toronto’s a nice, friendly city. I want to be polite, Canadian.”

At the same time, Gehry criticized Will Alsop’s “flying tabletop” expansion to the Ontario College of Art & Design, saying it encroaches too heavily on the nearby Grange area. Gehry even acknowledged that his own blueprint will need some tweaking in order to avoid a similar gaffe. “OCAD hasn’t succeeded, I haven’t succeeded . . . it’s a beautiful area, that’s being trashed.”

Other external changes to the AGO will include a glass roof over Walker Court, where a new Dundas Street entrance will be built, and a tinted glass-faced four-story south wing overlooking Grange Park. Gehry noted that on dull, wintry mornings, titanium mysteriously tends to take on a golden hue.

Visible from the street will be what is perhaps the most Gehryesque embellishment, an asymmetrical spiral staircase rising above Walker Court. This corner will also feature a large new social area and walkway, flooded with natural light thanks to extensive glazing and multiple, jutting, Lego-like skylights — a perennial Gehry touch.

Displayed for guests were various models, prototypes, a wall-sized panorama of Gehry’s Los Angeles office and enough sketches to satisfy the most obsessive-compulsive architecture buff.

Gehry’s Baroque spiral staircase dominates the interior of the new AGO. — Photo courtesy of AGO

Still, some Gehry enthusiasts must have felt a twinge of disappointment witnessing the rogue’s gallery of rejected prototypes. Many of these were very much in “traditional” Gehry style, featuring unevenly staggered cubes and elaborate, folded eruptions of glasswork, stunningly contrasted by tenuous columns of steel.

Gehry has repeatedly claimed that he would have been happy to leave the AGO as is, and he only took on the project because, well — they asked him. Two years ago, principal benefactor Kenneth Thomson agreed to donate $70 million to the project, adding to a pool initiated by the federal and provincial governments.

Nevertheless, come 2007, Toronto will finally have its Gehry building, to go along with its Alsop, its Libeskind and its Lord Foster. Though it may not radically transform the city’s architectural landscape as we know it, at least it will allow for more room to define its artistic landscape — and perhaps, this time around, they’ll throw in some anti-theft measures.

www.ago.net