INTERIOR DESIGNS

At the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Frank Gehry plays hockey with architecture, turning it into a game of speed and balance. From a curving glass entry facade that catches the motion of streetcars trundling along Dundas Street to a switchback ramp in the lobby and then a corkscrew stair in the museum’s central courtyard, Gehry—a hockey fan—gets things moving, slows them down, then picks them up again. At the same time, his extreme makeover of the venerable Toronto institution reasserts the original 1918 building’s north–south axis as a stabilizing force and the primary path for visitors to follow as they enter the museum and orient themselves.At the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Frank Gehry plays hockey with architecture, turning it into a game of speed and balance. From a curving glass entry facade that catches the motion of streetcars trundling along Dundas Street to a switchback ramp in the lobby and then a corkscrew stair in the museum’s central courtyard, Gehry—a hockey fan—gets things moving, slows them down, then picks them up again. At the same time, his extreme makeover of the venerable Toronto institution reasserts the original 1918 building’s north–south axis as a stabilizing force and the primary path for visitors to follow as they enter the museum and orient themselves.