The Globe and Mail

Early on in Wayne Johnston's novel The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, the young Joey Smallwood sails into St. John's aboard a boat carrying the corpses of men and boys, sealers who perished on the ice floes. Smallwood sees “the Basilica of St. John the Baptist looming up from the cluster of buildings on the hill ... the city looked so reasonable, so plausible, a site in which atrocities ... did not take place.” For more than a century, the Basilica loomed over St. John's. No longer: They're dwarfed by the bold scarlet, black, teal blue and salt-white shapes of the stunning $50-million provincial museum/art gallery/archives complex, The Rooms. Although the facility opened in June, 2005, people are still debating about what it has done to their skyline — and to their identity. As befits the people of North America's oldest European settlement, Newfoundlanders have long memories. They'll tell you that The Rooms project has made tempers flare like offshore oil fires ever since the idea of a new museum/gallery/archives was proposed a decade ago.