Toronto's ROM crystal on ugliest buildings list
Last Updated: Friday, November 20, 2009 | 8:04 PM ET
CBC News
The Royal Ontario Museum's Michael Lee-Chin Crystal opened in June 2007. (JP Moczulski/Reuters) A conspicuous addition to Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum has made it onto a tourism website's annual list of the "World's Top 10 Ugly Buildings."
The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal sits at No. 8 on the list compiled by VirtualTourist.com.
The website said in a Friday posting that although "many praise that glass structure, just as many are troubled by the incongruity to the original, more traditional museum that still sits directly beside it."
The addition, designed by Polish-born architect Daniel Libeskind, was opened to the public in June 2007.
Editors and members of VirtualTourist.com drew up the list of shame, topped by a now-vacant theatre in Baltimore:
- Morris A. Mechanic Theater, Baltimore, Md.
- Zizkov Television Tower; Prague.
- The Beehive, Wellington, New Zealand.
- Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
- Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia.
- Petrobras headquarters, Rio de Janeiro.
- Markel Building, Richmond, Va.
- Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.
- National Library, Pristina; Kosovo.
- Ryugyong Hotel, Pyongyang
“Many of these buildings don’t have the warmth of an ice cube while others don’t even seem completed," Giampiero Ambrosi, general manager of VirtualTourist.com, said in a statement. "Either way, they make for very interesting conversation.”
Last year, the first year of the ugly buildings list, the website put Boston's City Hall at the top.
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