Toronto Star

For the time being, the sound of music has been drowned out by the din of construction. But when work is done, the Royal Conservatory of Music's Telus Centre will be a different place, a seamless blend of new and old, intimate yet public, a performance venue as well as a state-of-the-art educational facility. Designed by Marianne McKenna of Toronto's acclaimed architectural firm Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg, it represents a huge step forward for the RCM, not to mention the city. The $110 million complex, which sits just west of the Royal Ontario Museum on Bloor St., is one of those projects — like the National Ballet School and the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art — that takes as its starting point the idea of urbanism itself. Of course, the conservatory has its needs — lots of them. Under its current, very ambitious administration, a traditional music school will be re-invented as an all-purpose cultural centre built for flexibility as much as learning. The 1,140-seat, horse-shoe-shaped Koerner Concert Hall, for example, was designed only after the architects had consulted with a number of local cultural institutions, everyone from the Toronto International Film Festival to Opera Atelier.