Canada's largest museum, with a Libeskind crystal crashing through the front of it that the city has never agreed about.
Founded in 1912 and now the largest museum in Canada, holding around 13 million objects across natural history and world cultures — a combination that in most cities would be two institutions.
The Crystal
In 2007 the ROM opened the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, a Daniel Libeskind extension of interlocking prismatic forms in aluminium and glass, driven through the Bloor Street façade of the original 1914 building.
It is the most argued-about building in Toronto. Supporters say it gave a staid institution presence and turned a corner into a landmark. Critics point out that the sloping walls make hanging things difficult, that the galleries inside are awkward, that it leaked, and that the promised glass was substantially replaced with opaque aluminium for cost reasons.
Both positions have merit and you should go and form your own.
The original 1914 and 1933 buildings behind it, in Italianate Neo-Romanesque with a mosaic-tiled rotunda ceiling, are excellent and easy to miss.
The collections
Dinosaurs — the James and Louise Temerty Galleries hold one of the better collections anywhere, including Gordo the Barosaurus, one of only a few mounted, and a substantial Burgess Shale holding from the Canadian Rockies.
Chinese collections — among the finest outside China, including the Ming tomb, a complete monumental tomb complex, and the crystal-gallery Chinese temple art.
First Peoples galleries, covering Indigenous cultures across Canada, developed with community consultation and rather better than they once were.
Egypt, Nubia, Greece, Rome, Byzantium and the Islamic world.
The bat cave — a walk-through recreation of a Jamaican cave with 800 model bats, which every Toronto child of a certain age remembers.
Practicalities
Ticketed. There are free or discounted evenings on a regular basis and a third Monday of the month free entry scheme has run at various times — check the current arrangement, it changes.
Allow three to four hours minimum. It is genuinely large.
Museum station on Line 1 surfaces at the entrance.
Nearby
The Gardiner Museum of ceramic art is directly across Queen’s Park. Bloor Street West runs into the Annex and Koreatown. The University of Toronto campus is immediately south, with Philosopher’s Walk running beside the museum.
More Museums
Art Gallery of Ontario
Frank Gehry's only Canadian building, in the neighbourhood he grew up in, holding the largest collection of Canadian art anywhere.
Aga Khan Museum
A white granite box by Fumihiko Maki holding Islamic art, in a park in suburban Toronto, and worth the journey.
Hockey Hall of Fame
The Stanley Cup, in a former bank hall with a stained-glass dome, and you are allowed to touch it.