Toronto Star

Next Saturday, when Daniel Libeskind's addition to the Royal Ontario Museum, the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, finally opens, a wave of anger and contempt will wash over Toronto. It has already started. Shock and outrage will spew from the pages of newspapers, radio talkshows and blogs. Never will people have beheld a building so ugly, architecture so appalling, design so bad – or such cheap-looking aluminium cladding this side of a post-war Scarborough semi. You can see it now, the shaking of heads, rolling of eyeballs, wringing of hands, the frothing, spluttering and snorting. It won't be pretty. But if they know as much about history as they should, Libeskind and his clients at the ROM will be thrilled. This has been the reaction to new architecture since time immemorial.