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INTROVERT ARCHITECTURE
Critically, the museum typology, and inherently, the ROM, is challenged by its desire for monumentation. An issue that Macleod highlights in her statement about museums is that they are “…consciously recognized as drivers for social and economic regeneration, the architecture of the museum has developed from traditional forms into often-spectacular one-off statements and architectural visions.”42 There is an apparent tension between the spectacular space of distraction and functional curation in recently built and renewed museums, where acts of Extrovert Architecture are at play.
Figure 3.5
Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum, Michael Lee-Chin Crystal extension by Studio Libeskind, 2007.
In contrast to the extrovert ideal of museum architecture, the museum carries a rather introspective identity. An identity that introduces introversion as not only a social and human-based function, but also an architectural action. The museum, defined as Mouseion, (muse-ion): A seat of the muses - A philosophical institution or place of contemplation, inherently reflects a set of actions that are illustrative of introverted behaviours. To contemplate
