The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto main gallery and one of the country's most important galleries, has decided that it is good policy to close for a year. Completely. All service staff have been laid off until further notice (read: we are expecting overruns, and have no idea when we might be re-opening), and thousands of works of art are being crated up for storage (there is no temporary exhibition space).
Arguably it has been closing gradually for some time, and my last couple of visits have been disappointing. But this is the big one. They have wheeled in a famous name (architect Frank Gehry), thrown millions of dollars of tax-payers' money at it (total cost: quarter of a BILLION), and converted it into a long-term construction site and traffic hazard.
As far as I can see, this is all in the interests of the buzz-word (or, rather, buzz-phrase) "world-class city", something Toronto has been fixating over for some years now.
Certainly it does not seem to be anything to do with rational economics. If they really believe that a new fancy glass façade will miraculously cause Torontonians to drop everything at the weekend to pay increased entrance fees to visit the art gallery, then they are naive in the extreme. Ditto with attracting additional visitors from New York, Phoenix, Tokyo or Berlin.
The Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto's pre-eminent museum) has been going through the same process in recent years with the construction of the "Michael Lee-Chin Crystal". Wheel in a famous name (architect Daniel Libeskind), throw millions of dollars of tax-payers' money at it (total cost: MORE than quarter of a billion) , close down major segments of the museum over a period of years so that visits become disappointing trawls around construction tape, et voilá: world-class city! Or not.
Meanwhile, the city council is broke and services are closing down left, right and centre.
Maybe we should concentrate on getting things working for the residents first, and then we can use any left-over money for coddling visitors with glass baubles. Too radical?
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