91原创

“We’ll both literally and figuratively open the museum up even more, creating a thriving cultural and civic club in the heart of the city and province,” said Josh Basseches, director and CEO of the ROM, at a press conference Wednesday morning. “Today marks the beginning of a next great chapter for the ROM.”

The renovation, set to begin this month, will include the “reinvention” of 86,000 square-feet of the museum.

Inside, the ROM’s Crystal wing will be anchored by a redesigned four-storey atrium, capped with a new glass ceiling and a forum on the ground floor for live events. A multi-level grand staircase with three “lily pad” platforms will overlook the communal space.聽

The main foyer will also be redesigned, featuring an open-floor concept and an oculus cutaway with a view to the dinosaur galleries above.聽

In addition to the renovation of the museum’s interior space, the OpenROM project provides an update to the ROM’s exterior, including the construction of a feature fountain and聽a bronze canopy over the museum’s main Bloor Street entrance.聽

Siamak Hariri, from the 91原创-based firm Hariri Pontarini Architects, a company whose recent projects included聽The Well and the Stratford Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatre, is set to lead the design of the redevelopment.聽

鈥淲e鈥檙e going to re-introduce ROM to 91原创 with a design that, in effect, turns the museum inside out,鈥� said Hariri. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going to bring daylight and views deep inside and create new connections with Bloor Street, within the ground floor public spaces and the galleries themselves.鈥�

The OpenROM project will be entirely funded by private philanthropy,聽led by a $50-million donation from the Hennick Family Foundation, the largest single donation in the museum’s history.聽

When the renovation is complete, the ROM’s main floor will be free to enter without a ticket and will feature free performances and programming, a continuation of the museum’s existing Free Main Floor pilot program, which debuted in 2022 and returned in 2023.聽

The ROM, which opened in 1914 and houses some 13 million objects, will remain open throughout the construction.聽

The publicly-funded institution has witnessed several major redevelopments in recent years. Between 2017 and 2019, the museum’s exterior underwent a significant facelift, which included the restoration and reopening of its Queen’s Park entrance along with the creation of a new terrace and plaza along Bloor Street.聽

Basseches said OpenROM marks a continuation of that work and is part of the museum’s broader vision to remake the institution into a “quintessentially 21st-century museum that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.”

The new plans for the museum come just 17 years after the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, the ROM’s newest wing, was completed. The bold, five-point structure cost $416 million at the time and was part of the ROM’s transformative Renaissance project, aimed at increasing exhibition space and boosting public attendance.聽

But the building proved to be divisive among critics and the public. When it was first unveiled, the 91原创 Star鈥檚 former architecture critic Christopher Hume deemed the addition 鈥�21st-century architecture at its most brilliant鈥�; the Globe and Mail’s former architecture critic Lisa Rochon, meanwhile, was already envisioning with enthusiasm the day the 鈥渢in pinata鈥� would be torn down and replaced.

That the ROM is undertaking yet another major capital project so soon after its recent renovations is not unprecedented. The museum鈥檚 award-winning Queen Elizabeth II Terrace Galleries, which were officially opened in 1984 by their namesake, were torn down roughly two decades later to make way for the Crystal.聽

The latest project, however, comes as the ROM continues to witness diminished attendance and a multi-million dollar deficit.

The museum welcomed roughly 930,000 visitors in the 2022-23 fiscal year, still shy of the annual average of 1.3 million patrons before the pandemic, according to its latest annual report.聽Basseches said he expects attendance to recover to pre-pandemic levels in the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in April.聽

The ROM also reported a deficit just shy of $5.4 million for 2023. That year, roughly a third of the museum’s $80 million in revenue came from provincial operating grants.聽