Is the ROM Crystal the decade's ugliest building?

Photo courtesy BigStockPhoto.com

The design of Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) Michael Lee-Chin Crystal addition is being called one of the worst of the decade.

The Royal Ontario Museum's (ROM's) Michael Lee-Chin Crystal addition has gotten mixed reviews about its architecture since it was part of a $270-million expansion in 2007. Now, The Washington Post's Philip Kennicott is calling the Toronto building one of the worst designs of the decade.

The addition is made from glass and aluminum, and gives the museum an extra 16,258 m2 (175,000 sf) of exhibit space. However, the usefulness of Daniel Libeskind's design—originally drawn on a napkin—is being taken to task by the paper's culture critic.

"His aluminum-and-glass-clad crystalline forms grow out of the building's original 1914 structure, and from the street it is dramatic," Kennicott wrote. "But go inside and you need a map to move around its irrational and baffling dead spaces."

Due to the different look and design, the ROM has also been added as number eight to www.virtualtourist.com's second annual list of the "World's Top 10 Ugly Buildings."

Nevertheless, critics were divided on their opinions when it opened. Condé Nast Traveler included the Crystal in its "New Seven Wonders of the World" article in April 2008, calling it "a piece of high-profile architecture."