OLD, RENEWED
ROM will reopen the Weston Entrance in Queen’s Park, about a decade since it was last used,
There will be more than one way to enter the Royal Ontario Museum this fall.
The ROM announced Tuesday it plans to reopen the heritage Weston Entrance in Queen’s Park in September, about a decade since it was last used. The entrance will undergo a significant makeover throughout the summer.
“This is actually something I have been looking towards since my very first days at the ROM, in fact even before I got here,” said Josh Basseches, the ROM’s director and CEO, who joined the museum in March 2016.
The revitalization project is meant to coincide with Canada’s 150th anniversary year. It’s being carried out by Toronto architect Siamak Hariri and is funded by the W. Garfield Weston Foundation through a $1.5-million investment by the province.
It will see the limestone steps leading up to the entrance “enhanced” to create a gathering spot, similar to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and complementing the museum’s Bloor St. entrance. New accessibility ramps will also be added.
Architectural lighting will illuminate the museum’s façade at night, as part of the new features.
The revitalization will also include glass doors to offer a view into the ROM’s rotunda from outdoors.
Opening the additional entrance also gives visitors access from the Museum subway station. The entrance is now one of two ways to enter the museum. It was last used 10 years ago, before the ROM’s Renaissance Project, which saw an extensive renovation and expansion of the museum, including the addition of the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at the Bloor St. entrance.
Basseches said now was the right time to reopen the entrance, in part due to the ROM’s recent success. Its attendance reached 1.35 million for the fiscal year ending March 31, marking the highest it has ever been. That figure also solidifies the ROM as the most visited museum in Canada and one of the top 40 in the world.
“There was a component of it that was logistical,” Basseches said. “Frankly, it was putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the single entrance.”
He added that the museum was committed a decade ago to “engaging with Bloor St.,” and emphasizing that the ROM “is not only a heritage institution but also very much a contemporary institution.”
“That focused all of the entrance and the energy toward Bloor St.,” he said.
“I think 10 years later, once that wonderful crystal has been here and we have done such a wonderful job of making the commitment to the contemporary world, it gives us a chance to go back and say ‘how can we make our heritage entrance and our history also accessible to the public?’ ” Sammy Hudes