The Art Gallery of Ontario
Will starchitect Frank Gehry’s redesign transform the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) into a world renowned building? That certainly seems to have been the goal of much of the recent museum-building in the city, though the results have been uneven. Just down the street is Will Alsop’s CDN$42.5 million Ontario College of Art and Design, which preserved residents’ views of the park by putting the institution on stilts, though the project’s scale was ultimately limited by budget constraints. Meanwhile, Daniel Libeskind’s recent addition to the Royal Ontario Museum feels tacky and slightly out-of-step with the city. While it’s still too early to gauge how both…
by Paddy Johnson on 02/12/08 | No responses | Read More
Venice 2008
‘Architecture must go beyond buildings because buildings are not enough.’ So proclaims Aaron Betsky, curator of the eleventh Venice Architecture Biennale. And, when charged with filling a sprawling 10,000 square metres of exhibition space, it seems like a fair comment. Boring old buildings just won’t quite suffice; damned as the outmoded ‘tombs of architecture’, they must be transcended at all costs.
Yet after traipsing through the 300-metre long morgue of the Arsenale’s Corderie, past a procession of one-liners from an ageing avant-garde, I was longing for a plan and section. Or at least an idea.
Betsky has filled Venice’s majestic old…
by Oliver Wainwright on 29/09/08 | No responses | Read More
Playtime is Over
It’s like Dorothy’s house has crashed into Do-Ho Suh’s suburban home, courtesy of a diabolic tornado. On the other side of the gallery another fearsome projectile has ripped through an impeccably furnished IKEA living room, laid out by Los Carpinteros, leaving a trail of exploded fragments paused as though gravity did not exist. Mike Nelson has summoned a poltergeist party. Various pods have sprouted across the building like art-sores: Ernesto Neto’s is a huge fishnet pendant embellished with other pendulous, perfumed scrota; Tomas Saraceno’s, an inflatable, achromatic pleasure balloon; and…
by Shumon Basar on 03/08/08 | No responses | Read More
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