Royal Ontario Museum
The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM is the biggest museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, which attracts over one million visitors every year.
Established on 16 April 1912, the museum was under the direct control and management of the University of Toronto until 1968, when it became an independent institution. Today, the ROM is Canada’s largest field-research institution.
With more than six million items and forty galleries, the museum’s collections of world culture and natural history contribute to its international reputation, as the museum contains notable collections of dinosaurs, minerals and meteorites, World art, European and Canadian history. It houses the world’s largest collection of fossils from the Burgess Shale with more than 150,000 specimens] The museum also contains an extensive collection of design and fine arts, including clothing, interior, and product design, especially Art Deco.
On 26 October 1968, the ROM opened the McLaughlin Planetarium on the south end of the property after receiving a $2 million donation from Colonel R. Samuel McLaughlin, but the Planetarium was closed in 1995 due to the budget cuts.
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| Royal Ontario Museum. The Crystal, the new entrance of the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). Photo: © Elena |
Designed by Toronto architects Frank Darling and John A. Pearson, the architectural style of the original building of the museum is Italianate Neo-Romanesque, popular throughout North America until the 1870s. The structure is heavily massed and punctuated by rounded and segmented arched windows with heavy surrounds and hood mouldings.
The eastern wing facing Queen’s Park was designed by Alfred H. Chapman and James Oxley. Opened in 1933, it included the museum’s elaborate art deco, Byzantine-inspired rotunda and a new main entrance. The linking wing and rear façade of the Queen’s Park wing were originally done in the same yellow brick as the 1914 building, with minor Italianate detailing.
Designed by Toronto architect Gene Kinoshita, with Mathers & Haldenby, the curatorial centre forms the southern section of the museum. Completed in 1984, it was built during the same expansion as the former Queen Elizabeth II Terrace Galleries which stood on north side of the museum. The architecture is a simple modernist style of poured concrete, glass, and pre-cast concrete and aggregate panels.
The curatorial centre houses the museum’s administrative and curatorial services, and provides storage for artifacts that are not on exhibit. In 2006, the curatorial centre was renamed to Louise Hawley Stone Curatorial Centre in honor of the late Mrs. Louise Hawley Stone who devoted herself to the ROM throughout her life, and she donated a number of artifacts and various collections to the museum.
The ROM is located north of Queen’s Park, in the University of Toronto district, with its main entrance on Bloor Street West. The Museum subway station of the Toronto subway network is named after the ROM.
Originally, there were five major galleries at the ROM, one each for the fields of archaeology, geology, mineralogy, paleontology, and zoology. Theses original galleries were named after their subject material. In more recent years, individual galleries have been named in honour of sponsors who have donated significant funds or collections to the institution. There are now two main categories of galleries present in the Royal Ontario Museum: the Natural History Galleries and the World Culture Galleries. The Natural History galleries are all gathered on the second floor of the museum. The gallery contains collections and samples of various animals such as bats, birds, and dinosaur bones and skeletons.
The Gallery of Birds has on display many bird specimens from past centuries. The Gallery of Birds is dominated by the broad “Birds in flight” display where stuffed birds are enclosed in a glass display for visitors to experience.
The Bat Cave is an immersive experience for visitors that presents over 20 bats and 800 models in a recreated habitat, with accompanying educational panels and video.
The Reed Gallery of the Age of Mammals explores the rise of mammals through the Cenozoic Era that followed the extinction of the dinosaurs. There are over 400 specimens from North America and South America on display. Also included in the gallery are, 30 fossil skeletons of extinct mammals, over 160 non-mammalian specimens, and hundreds of fossil plants, insects, fish, and turtles.
The Teck Suite of Galleries: Earth’s Treasures features almost 3,000 specimens of minerals, gems, meteorites and rocks ranging from 4.5 billion years ago to the present.
The World Culture galleries display a wide variety of objects from around the world. These range from Stone Age implements from China and Africa to 20th-century art and design. In July 2011, the museum added to this collection when a number of new permanent galleries were unveiled. Both the Government of Canada and the Royal Ontario Museum committed $2.75 million toward the project. The galleries are located on the first, third and fourth levels of the museum.
The Daphne Cockwell Gallery of Canada: First Peoples provides a look inside the culture of Canada’s earliest societies: the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada. The gallery contains more than 1,000 artifacts that help to reveal the economic and social forces that have influenced Native art. There is also a rotating display of contemporary Native art, an area dedicated to the works of pioneer artist Paul Kane. A theatre of the Royal Ontario Museum is devoted to traditional storytelling. Just outside of this gallery, the central staircase winds around the Nisga’a and Haida Crest Poles of the Royal Ontario Museum, one of the museum’s iconic objects.
Sigmund Samuel Gallery of Canada is located on the Weston Family Wing, the Sigmund Samuel gallery displays collections of early Canadian memorabilia.
The Chinese Galleries comprise four sections: the Bishop White Gallery of Chinese Temple Art, the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Gallery of China, the Matthews Family Court of Chinese Sculpture, and the ROM Gallery of Chinese Architecture.
The Bishop White Gallery of Chinese Temple Art gallery contains three of the world’s best-preserved temple wall paintings from the Yuan dynasty (AD 1271–1386) and a number of wooden sculptures depicting various bodhisattvas from the 12th to 15th centuries.It also has one of the Yixian glazed pottery luohans, c. 1000.
The Matthews Family Court of Chinese Sculpture has a wide variety of sculptures that span 2,000 years of Chinese sculptural art. It also displays a number of smaller objects that explore the development of religions in China from the 3rd to 19th centuries AD.
The Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Gallery of China consists of approximately 2,500 objects spanning almost 7,000 years of Chinese history. The gallery is divided into five sections: the T.T. Tsui Exhibit of Prehistory and Bronze Age; the Qin and Han Dynasties; the Michael C.K. Lo Exhibition of North, South, Sui and Tang; the Song, Yuan and Frontier Dynasties; and the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The Royal Ontario Museum Gallery of Chinese Architecture houses one of the largest collection of Chinese architectural artifacts outside of China and is the first gallery of Chinese architecture in North America. The gallery holds some spectacular exhibits such as a reconstruction of an Imperial Palace building from Beijing’s Forbidden City and a Ming-era tomb complex.
The Gallery of Korea is the only gallery of Korean art in Canada. With approximately 260 objects and artifacts, the gallery brings to life Korean and culture. Furniture, ceramics, metalwork, printing technology, painting and decorative arts, dating from the 3rd to 20th centuries AD, illustrate the many accomplishments to Korean culture. Buddhism being a large part of the Korean culture was introduced to them through China and took hold on the general population.
The Prince Takamado Gallery of Japan contains the largest collection of Japanese artworks in Canada, featuring a rotating display of ukiyo-e prints, and the only tea master collection in North America. The gallery is split into a number of different sections, each home to the collection of objects that the name suggests: the Toyota Canada Inc. Exhibit of Ukiyo-e Pictures, the Sony Exhibit of Painting, the Canon Canada Inc. Samurai Exhibit, the Mitsui & Co. Canada Tea Ceremony Exhibit, the Maple Leaf Foods Exhibit of Lacquers, and the Linamar Corporation Exhibit of Ceramics. The gallery is named in honour of the late Japanese Prince Takamado. He spent several years at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.
The Eaton Gallery of Rome is home to a 1000 years of ancient Roman culture. It has the largest collection of classical antiquities in Canada. More than 500 objects are displayed there. They range from marble or painted portraits of historical figures to magnificent Roman jewellery. The gallery also features the Bratty Exhibit of Etruria that sheds some light on the Etruscans, a neighbouring civilization.
The Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Gallery of Byzantium of the Royal Ontario Museum covers the history of the Byzantine Empire from 330 to 1453 AD. In that period crucial changes took place in early eastern Christianity. There are over 230 artifacts that relate to the dedication of Constantinople, the fall of the Roman Empire, the Medieval Crusades, and the conquest by the Ottoman Turks. Items such as jewelry, glass work, coins help to illustrate the vast history of modern-day Istanbul.
The Galleries of Africa: Nubia feature a collection of objects that explore the once flourishing civilization of Nubia. The Nubians were the first urban literary society in Africa south of the Sahara and were Egypt’s main rival.
The A.G. Leventis Foundation Gallery of Ancient Cyprus houses roughly 300 artifacts, focusing on the art created in Cyprus between 2200–30 BC. The gallery is divided into five sections: Cyprus and Commerce, Ancient Cypriot Pottery Types, Sculptures, Ancient Cyprus at a Glance, and Art & Society: Interpretations. The collection includes a reconstructed open-air sanctuary and a rare bronze relief statue of a man carrying a large copper ingot.
The Gallery of Africa: Egypt focuses on the life (and the afterlife) of Ancient Egyptians. It includes a wide range of artifacts, ranging from agricultural implements, jewelry, cosmetics, funerary furnishings and more. The exhibit includes a number of mummy cases, including the fine gilded and painted coffin of Djedmaatesankh. She was a female musician at the temple of Amun-Re in Thebes, and the mummy of Antjau, who is thought to have been a wealthy landowner. In this gallery, one of the ROM’s Iconic Objects, the Bust of Cleopatra, can be found. It is one of only two in existence and is listed as one of the museum’s “must see” objects.
The Gallery of the Bronze Age Aegean features over 100 objects that include examples from the Cycladic, Minoan, Mycenaean and Geometric periods of Ancient Greece. The collection ranges in age from 3200 – 700 BC and contains a variety of objects that include a marble head of a female figure and a glass necklace.
The Gallery of Greece has a collection of 1,500 artifacts that span the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods. This time span witnessed the bit of Western art. The collection consists of items such as sculptures of deities, armour, and a coin collection.
The Shreyas and Mina Ajmera Gallery of Africa, the Americas and Asia-Pacific features a collection of 1,400 artifacts. They reflect the artistic and cultural traditions of the indigenous peoples from four different geographical areas: Africa, the American continents, the Asia-Pacific region and Oceania. On display are objects such as ceremonial masks, ceramics, and even a shrunken head.
The Sir Christopher Ondaatje South Asian Gallery holds a diverse collection of objects such as decorative art, armour and sculptures that represents the culture of South Asia. The gallery has approximately 350 objects that represent over 5,000 years of history. Due to the wide range of history and cultures on display, the gallery is split into numerous different sections. These are: the Material Remains, Imagining the Buddha, Visualizing Divinity, Passage to Enlightenment, Courtly Culture, Cultural Exchange, Home and the World.[72] In this gallery, you can find one of the ROM’s Iconic Objects, the (Untitled) Blue Lady by Navjot Altaf, listed as one of the museum’s “must see” objects.
The Wirth Gallery of the Middle East explores civilizations from the Palaeolithic Age to 1900 AD found within the Fertile Crescent, which stretches from the Eastern Mediterranean, Persia (Iran) and Iraq to the Arabian Peninsula. The over 1,000 artifacts relate to the writing, technology, spirituality, every day life, and warfare of the ancient Babylonians, Sumerians, and Assyrians.
The Samuel European Galleries have over 4,600 objects that chronicle the development of decorative and other arts in Europe from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The period rooms depict the development of decorative arts in Central and Western Europe by showcasing changes in style during the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical and Victorian periods. Other specialized collections relating to Culture and Context, Judaica, Art Deco and Arms and Armour are also displayed.
The Patricia Harris Gallery of Costumes and Textiles holds about 200 artifacts from the ROM’s textile and costume collections. These pieces, which range from the 1st century BC to the present day, are rotated frequently due to their fragility. Throughout time, textiles and fashion have been used to establish identity and allow inferences to be drawn about a culture’s social customs, economy, and survival.
Other world culture galleries include the Herman Herzog Levy Gallery and the Samuel Hall-Currelly Gallery.
The CIBC Discovery Gallery was designed to be a kids’ learning zone. It houses three main areas: In the Earth, Around the World, and Close to Home. The space is inspired by the ROM’s collections. It enables children to participate in interactive activities involving touchable artifacts and specimens, costumes, digging for dinosaur bones, and examining fossils and meteorites.
The Patrick and Barbara Keenan Family Gallery of Hands-On Biodiversity introduces visitors to the complicated relationships which occur among all living things in a fun and interactive space. People of all ages can explore touchable specimens. Interactive displays while gallery facilitators help visitors discover the living world around them. Mossy frogs, a touchable shark jaw, snake skin, and a replica fox’s den are just some of the objects that connect visitors to the amazing diversity and interdependence of plants and animals.
The Roloff Beny Gallery of the Institute for Contemporary Culture (ICC) hosts the Royal Ontario Museum’s contemporary art exhibitions. This high-ceilinged multimedia gallery of approximately 6,000 sq ft (600 m2) serves as the ICC’s main exhibition space It is the ROM’s window on contemporary society, connecting the ROM’s vast natural history and world cultures collection to contemporary art and events.
The Royal Ontario Museum is located north of Queen’s Park, in the University of Toronto district. Its main entrance is on Bloor Street West. The Museum subway station of the Toronto subway network is named after the ROM.
Address of the Royal Ontario Museum:
100, Queen’s Park
Toronto (Ontario)
M5S 2C6
Royal Canadian Museum website: rom.on.ca
