With the South Asian and Middle East galleries opening Saturday, the Royal Ontario Museum inches closer to fully populating its new, massive—some would say monstrous—Michael Lee-Chin Crystal.
The galleries share a third-floor pocket in the Daniel Libeskind-designed crystal. The structure opened to mixed reviews last December as part of Renaissance ROM, the museum’s ambitious $270-million renovation project that is slated to finish in 2010.
“It’s like we flew in museums, but we just brought them up from the basement,” said William Thorsell, director and CEO of the ROM, at Tuesday’s media preview.
The new space is a chance for the ROM to display never-beforeseen collections, said Thorsell.
Christopher Ondaatje, twice a donor to the gallery that bears his name, expressed grander hopes.
“I have an enormous collection, one day I will give it to one of the museums. Hopefully here. But where will you put it?” he gestured, “You need a place to put it, we don’t have room right now to put all of the stuff.”
Ondaatje donated $1 million to the first Christopher Ondaatje South Asian Gallery, matched by the South Asia Request and Acquisition Fund and the ROM, which opened in 2000 and was torn down after two years. Ondaatje ponied up another million for the new gallery.
The writer and philanthropist enthused about the South Asian community’s donations. “All the various communities, with all the religious and racial differences and sometimes violent clashes all over the world, forgot their bigotry and differences and contributed to this single thing—a gallery.”
“I don’t believe that can be done in any other country in the world. That’s what Canada is all about.”
Unlike Ondaatje, Wirth said he was not approached specifically for his namesake gallery. “The Middle Eastern gallery was an orphan,” he said. “It hadn’t had help yet.”
Wirth said he gave to the ROM because he loved learning. “I take courses at U of T, but I don’t take them to write exams. And I have to take them several times because I can only make some classes.”
