When Waterfront Toronto announced that Claud Cormier Architects' Sugar Beach" had won the Jarvis Street Slip competition, we should have known trouble was coming. This weekend it arrived with Christopher Hume's more than scathing review of the decision. Hume doesn't hold back, and goes as far as suggesting that the competition was anything but fair:

But, the TWRC brain trust would argue, the decision was made by an expert jury assembled for the purpose. Therein lies the problem; the four-member panel was made up largely of insiders. The chair, for example, Toronto architect Siamak Hariri, belongs to the waterfront design review board as does another jury member, local architect Peter Clewes. Hariri and Cormier worked together on HtO, along with a second competitor, Toronto landscape architect Janet Rosenberg, also a member of the board.

Given the miserable weather in Toronto today, I'm going to change this discussion away from Bruce Mau Design's internal operations, to the city he has chosen over ours. This entry is admittedly superficial—sorry, but I'm swamped with work, and this snow storm is not helping.

I visited Chicago a few weeks ago for the first time in years. If I were to describe the city in one phase it would be this: It is the only city I've been to where looking down on it from fifty stories resembles looking at a plan from an urban design studio exercise. Maybe that's one of the reasons Bruce chose to move his main office there—the city's centre is an ongoing, high-level design project. Following are a few images of the city including some from the very successful Millennium Park Project—Chicago's answer to unsightly railway yards (Toronto planners, are you listening??). Any city that can pull off a project like this one deserves our attention.


Chicago's famed Riverside Drive blends into the "Golden Mile"


The Navy Pier Amusement Park


Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate" sculpture—Millennium Park


Jaume Plensa's "Crown Fountain" reflecting pond in winter—Millennium Park

Architect Daniel Libeskind and ROM CEO William Thorsell meet museum patrons.

Torontonians confirmed the popularity of the newly opened Royal Ontario Museum over the holidays by breaking all previous attendance records for the venerable institution. ROM spokesperson Francisco Alvarez announced yesterday that more than 66,000 visitors came to the ROM between December 26th. and January 6th. After suffering through an array of negative critical reviews, the ROM is proving that Libeskind’s Crystal is just the kind of cultural spectacle that entices people to a museum. Of course, the ROM’s exceptional collections are the real draw.

Importantly, 2,200 new members signed up over the holidays bringing the ROM’s membership up to 31,000 area households. That number just does not seem high enough as far as Reading Toronto is concerned. With more than 5 million people in the GTA, the newly reinvented ROM should be able to double that membership in the next few years.

Congratulations to William Thorsell, Daniel Libeskind, and the ROM’s curatorial staff for making this great museum a critical part of the Toronto experience.

In case you missed it, here is how the Crystal took shape--in fast forward:

According to John Spears of the Toronto Star, the Nathan Phillips Square redesign is moving slowly--if at all. With only $16 million of the required $40 million required for the project in place, this could well end up being a project that will take a generation to complete. Why is it that great public spaces in the city take so long to realize?