Royal Ontario Museum

Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)

Canada's largest multidisciplinary museum, known for its crystal-like exterior designed by Daniel Libeskind. Highlights include the dinosaur galleries and a Chinese collection of Ming tomb sculptures and Yuan murals that are rare outside China.

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) opened in 1914 and is Canada's largest museum of art, world cultures and natural history, with a collection of about 13 million objects. The building is itself a highlight: the 1914 Romanesque Revival original structure and the 2007 Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, a new wing designed by Daniel Libeskind, whose sharp crystalline form of aluminum and glass seems to burst out of the old building. Of special interest to Chinese visitors is the Chinese collection, which is among the most important in the West. It includes Ming dynasty stone figures and a paifang gateway from the family tomb of Zu Dashou, moved from outside Beijing, as well as a large Yuan dynasty mural from Xinghua Temple in Shanxi, displayed in the Bishop White Gallery of Chinese Temple Art, along with Taoist and Buddhist painted sculptures, Shang and Zhou bronzes and Tang tricolor ceramics. Other highlights include the Age of Dinosaurs gallery, with a huge sauropod skeleton and the 'Razor' ankylosaur fossil; a world-class mineral and gemstone gallery; the skeleton of a blue whale; a gallery of Indigenous Canadian culture; and artifacts from Egypt, Greece and Rome. Adult admission is about C$26, with special exhibitions charged separately. Buying tickets online is recommended. Hours are generally 10:00 to 17:30. The café and gift shop are worth a visit. Getting there: exit at Museum subway station, where the platform columns are decorated like ancient columns. The museum is next to the University of Toronto and the upscale Bloor Street shopping district, and across the street is the Gardiner Museum of ceramics. Seeing everything takes most of a day. A focused visit takes about three hours.

Royal Ontario Museum

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