Royal Ontario Museum facts for kids
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| Established | 16 April 1912 |
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| Location | 100 Queen's Park Toronto, Ontario M5S 2C6 |
| Collection size | 13,000,000+ |
| Visitors | 1,440,000 |
| Owner | Government of Ontario |
| Public transit access |  Museum St. George |
| Built | 1910–1914, addition: 1931–32 |
| Architect | Darling & Pearson, addition: Chapman & Oxley |
| Sculptor | Wm. Oosterhoff |
| Designated | 2003 |
| Reference no. | Heritage Easement Agreement AT347470 |
The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a huge museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It shows art, cultures from around the world, and natural history. It is one of the biggest museums in North America and the largest in Canada.
More than one million people visit the ROM every year. This makes it the most-visited museum in Canada. It is located near Queen's Park and the University of Toronto. The Museum subway station is named after it. Since 2008, the station looks like the museum's collections.
The ROM opened on March 19, 1914, after being started on April 16, 1912. It has always worked closely with the University of Toronto. Until 1968, the university managed the museum. Then, it became an independent agency of the Government of Ontario. The ROM is Canada's largest research place for studying nature and history. Its experts work on projects all over the world.
The museum has over 13 million items and 40 galleries. Its collections of world culture and natural history are famous worldwide. You can see dinosaurs, minerals, and meteorites there. It also has Canadian and European historical items. Plus, there is African, Near Eastern, and East Asian art. The ROM has the world's largest collection of fossils from the Burgess Shale in British Columbia. This collection has over 150,000 fossils. The museum also has many items of design and fine art. This includes clothing, home decor, and product design, especially in the Art Deco style.
Contents
History of the ROM
The Royal Ontario Museum officially started on April 16, 1912. Both the Government of Ontario and the University of Toronto managed it. Its first items came from the university and the Ontario Department of Education. These items were from an older museum called the Museum of Natural History and Fine Arts.
On March 19, 1914, the Duke of Connaught officially opened the museum. He was also the governor general of Canada. The museum was built near the University of Toronto. The first building was on the west side, facing Bloor Street. It held five separate museums: Archaeology, Palaeontology, Mineralogy, Zoology, and Geology. It cost about $400,000 to build. This was the first step of a plan to make the museum much bigger.
Expansions and Changes
The first big addition to the museum opened on October 12, 1933. This $1.8 million project added the east wing facing Queen's Park. It was built during the Great Depression. So, workers used local materials and dug the foundations by hand. Teams of workers took turns because the job was very hard.
In 1947, the ROM became part of the University of Toronto. But in 1968, the museum and the McLaughlin Planetarium became a new, separate organization.
The McLaughlin Planetarium opened in 1968. It was built with a $2 million gift. The ROM closed the planetarium in 1995 because of budget cuts. It was later sold to the University of Toronto in 2009.
Another major addition was the Queen Elizabeth II Terrace Galleries. This project started in 1978 and finished in 1984. It cost $55 million. The new design had layers of terraces that stepped back from Bloor Street. This design won a special architecture award.
Modern Renovations
In 2002, the museum began a huge renovation called Renaissance ROM. The Canadian and Ontario governments gave $60 million. A person named Michael Lee-Chin donated $30 million. The goal was to attract more visitors and get more money for research and programs.
The main part of this project was a new, unique building called the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. Architect Daniel Libeskind designed it. This new part replaced the Terrace Galleries. Old galleries were also updated. The first renovated galleries opened in December 2005. The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal opened in June 2007. The whole project cost about $270 million.
The original museum building is a protected heritage site in Toronto. It was listed in 1973 and officially protected in 2003.
Buildings and Architecture
Original Building and East Wing
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The first museum building was designed by Frank Darling and John A. Pearson. Its style mixes Italianate and Neo-Romanesque designs. It has strong, heavy walls with rounded windows. Other features include decorative brackets and cornices.
The east wing, facing Queen's Park, was designed by Alfred H. Chapman and James Oxley. It opened in 1933. This part included the museum's beautiful Art Deco rotunda and a new main entrance. The style of this wing is Neo-Byzantine. It has rough stone, triple windows, and different colored stones. This style shows how Byzantine architecture grew from Roman architecture.
The rotunda's fancy ceiling is mostly covered in gold back painted glass mosaic tiles. It also has colorful patterns and images of real and mythical animals.
In 1933, a writer for the Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada praised the new expansion. He said the inside was a "surprise and a pleasant one" and that the "glass mosaic ceiling of the entrance rotunda" was a highlight.
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The original building and the 1933 addition are protected heritage buildings. In 2005, a big renovation made the galleries larger and cleaned the outside of the old buildings. This was the biggest heritage project in Canada. The rotunda was also restored with new oak doors.
The first plan for the ROM in 1909 imagined a square building with hallways meeting in a central domed rotunda. It looked like grand palaces from the 1600s and 1700s. All the architectural details made the museum look strong and important.
In the mid-2010s, the eastern entrance was used as a café. Since late 2017, this entrance has been under renovation. It will become another entrance with ramps. It is very close to the Museum subway station.
Curatorial Centre
The curatorial centre is on the south side of the museum. It was designed by Gene Kinoshita and finished in 1984. This building has a simple modernist style. It uses concrete, glass, and pre-cast panels. The curatorial centre holds the museum's offices and stores items not on display.
In 2006, it was renamed the Louise Hawley Stone Curatorial Centre. This honored Louise Hawley Stone, who gave many items and collections to the museum. She also left a large amount of money to help maintain the building and buy new artifacts.
Michael Lee-Chin Crystal
The "Michael Lee-Chin Crystal" is a new, striking addition to the museum. It replaced the Queen Elizabeth II Terrace Galleries. This multi-million dollar expansion was designed by Daniel Libeskind and opened in 2007. It has a new sliding door entrance on Bloor Street.
The Crystal has a unique, jagged shape. It is covered in 25 percent glass and 75 percent aluminum. It sits on a steel frame. The Crystal's angled walls do not touch the old buildings. They create a path for people to walk between the new and old parts.
The design is similar to other buildings by Libeskind, like the Jewish Museum in Berlin. The steel frame was made in Hamilton, Ontario. The aluminum covering was made in Germany. This company also made the titanium for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.
When it opened in 2007, the Crystal caused some debate. Some people loved its modern look. Others thought it was ugly. One critic called it "oppressive, angsty and hellish." But others called it a "monument." Some have even said it is one of the ten ugliest buildings in the world. The project also went over budget and took longer than planned.
The main entrance area is a three-story space called the Hyacinth Gloria Chen Crystal Court. It has balconies and a special staircase.
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New permanent galleries inside the Crystal opened in mid-2007. The empty spaces were open to the public for ten days before. The Crystal has a gift shop, a cafeteria, and seven new galleries. It also has Canada's largest temporary exhibition hall in a museum. These new galleries offer amazing visuals and show how objects and spaces connect.
In October 2007, there were reports of water leaks in the Crystal. This raised concerns about how it would handle bad weather. Other buildings by Daniel Libeskind have also had weather problems.
The Crystal entrance is being renovated since early 2024 to create a plaza.
Offsite Storage
Many items in the ROM's collection are not on display. They are stored in different locations around the Greater Toronto Area.
Galleries
The ROM originally had five main galleries: archaeology, geology, mineralogy, paleontology, and zoology. For a long time, the displays were very simple. For example, insect exhibits had rows of cases with pinned insects. Only the species name and location were given.
By the 1960s, displays became more interesting. The first dinosaur gallery, opened in the mid-1960s, showed dinosaurs in active poses. They had backgrounds of old landscapes. Displays also started to explain more. For example, they offered different ideas about why woolly mammoths died out. This trend continued.
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In the 1980s, The Bat Cave opened. It used sounds, lights, and air puffs to make you feel like you were walking through a cave with bats flying.
Today, galleries are often named after people who have given money or collections to the museum. The ROM now has two main types of galleries: Natural History Galleries and World Culture Galleries.
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The Samuel Hall Currelly Gallery is on Level 1. It connects the east and west parts of the museum. This gallery is the main lobby after you enter. It does not focus on one subject. Instead, it shows a mix of items from the museum's whole collection.
Costumes and Textiles
The Patricia Harris Gallery of Costumes and Textiles displays about 200 items. These pieces are from the 1st century BC to today. They are changed often because they are delicate. Textiles and fashion show how cultures lived, their customs, and their economies. This gallery shows how textile design and making have changed over time. You can see weaving, needlework, and ancient silks here.
Interactive Galleries
The CIBC Discovery Gallery was a learning area for children. It closed in 2023. It had three areas: In the Earth, Around the World, and Close to Home. Kids could touch artifacts, wear costumes, dig for dinosaur bones, and look at fossils. There was also a special area for younger children.
The Patrick and Barbara Keenan Family Gallery of Hands-On Biodiversity teaches visitors about how all living things are connected. People of all ages can touch specimens and use interactive displays. Museum staff help visitors learn about plants and animals. You can see mossy frogs, a shark jaw to touch, snakeskin, and a fake fox's den. These items help young visitors understand the variety of life.
Institute for Contemporary Culture
The Roloff Beny Gallery of the Institute for Contemporary Culture (ICC) shows modern art. This large gallery often has exhibits that connect modern culture with the museum's natural and world collections. It has shown fashion photography, street art, Chinese urban design, and Japanese art. In 2018, it featured Here We Are: Black Canadian Contemporary Art.
Natural History Galleries
The natural history galleries are all on the second floor. They have collections and examples of animals like bats, birds, and dinosaurs.
Nature and Animals
The Life in Crisis: Schad Gallery of Biodiversity opened in 2009. It shows endangered species like a polar bear, a giant panda, and a white rhinoceros. It also has recently extinct species like a passenger pigeon and a dodo skeleton. The gallery teaches why we need to protect nature. It explains the main reasons for extinction: too much hunting, destroying habitats, and climate change.
The Life in Crisis gallery has three main parts: Life is Diverse, Life is Interconnected, and Life is at Risk. The designers wanted to create an exciting experience. They hoped the three themes would leave a lasting impression on visitors.
The Tallgrass Prairies and Savannas is a part of the gallery. It shows one of Ontario's most endangered habitats. It highlights efforts to protect and restore these areas.
The Gallery of Birds displays many bird specimens from past centuries. A large "Birds in flight" display shows stuffed birds in a glass case. Dioramas teach about different bird species. They also show how environmental changes threaten birds. Drawers let visitors look closely at eggs, feathers, and nests.
The Royal Ontario Museum bought a blue whale that washed up on a beach in Newfoundland. Its skeleton and heart were shown as a traveling exhibit until September 2017.
The Bat Cave is an exciting experience for visitors. It has over 20 bats and 800 models in a recreated habitat. It also has educational panels and videos. The bat cave reopened in 2010 after big renovations. It includes a copy of St. Clair Cave in Jamaica. The museum did research in Jamaica to create this cave.
Earth and Space
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The Teck Suite of Galleries: Earth's Treasures has almost 3,000 specimens. These include minerals, gems, meteorites, and rocks. They range from 4.5 billion years old to today. These items were found in many places, including Earth, the Moon, and beyond. They show Earth's changing geology. Important items include pieces of the Tagish Lake meteorite. The Light of the Desert, the world's largest faceted cerussite, is also on display.
Parts of the Teck Suite of Galleries include the Barrick Gold Corporation Gallery, the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame Gallery, the Gallery of Gems and Gold, and the Vale Gallery of Minerals.
Fossils and Evolution
The Reed Gallery of the Age of Mammals explores how mammals grew after the non-avian dinosaurs died out. It has over 400 specimens from North and South America. It also has 30 fossil skeletons of extinct mammals. A highlight is the sabre-toothed Dinictis.
The James and Louise Temerty Galleries of the Age of Dinosaurs and Gallery of the Age of Mammals show many complete non-avian dinosaur skeletons. They also have early birds, reptiles, mammals, and sea animals. These range from the Jurassic to Cretaceous periods. The main attraction is Gordo, one of the most complete Barosaurus skeletons in North America. It is the largest dinosaur on display in Canada.
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The Willner Madge Gallery, Dawn of Life, opened in 2021. It focuses on how life evolved in the Paleozoic Era, from billions of years ago to the Late Triassic. It highlights many fossil sites from Canada, like the Burgess Shale in British Columbia. The gallery has six sections, covering different time periods. Notable items include fossils from the Burgess Shale and the Dimetrodon borealis skeleton.
The ROM also has a Zuul crurivastator skeleton. This is one of the most complete ankylosaurid specimens ever found.
World Culture Galleries
The world culture galleries display many objects from around the globe. These range from Stone Age tools from China and Africa to 20th-century art and design. In July 2011, new permanent galleries were added. The Government of Canada and the ROM each gave $2.75 million for this project. These galleries are on the first, third, and fourth levels of the museum.
Africa, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific
The Shreyas and Mina Ajmera Gallery of Africa, the Americas and Asia-Pacific has 1,400 artifacts. These items show the art and culture of native peoples from Africa, the American continents, the Asia–Pacific region, and Oceania. You can see ceremonial masks, pottery, and even a shrunken head.
South Asia and Middle East
The Sir Christopher Ondaatje South Asian Gallery has many different objects. These include decorative art, armor, and sculptures. They show the culture of the Indian subcontinent. The gallery has about 350 objects that cover over 5,000 years of history. It is divided into sections like "Material Remains" and "Imagining the Buddha." Here, you can find the Untitled Blue Lady sculpture by artist Navjot Altaf.
The Wirth Gallery of the Middle East explores ancient civilizations. These are from the Palaeolithic Age to 1900 AD in the Fertile Crescent. This area includes the Eastern Mediterranean, Persia (Iran), Mesopotamia (Iraq), and the Arabian Peninsula. The gallery has over 1,000 artifacts. They show the writing, technology, and daily life of ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. These civilizations made big steps in writing, math, and law. Items include plastered human skulls from around 8000 BC. Another famous piece is the Striding Lion, a wall relief from Nebuchadnezzar II's palace in Babylon.
Mediterranean
The Eaton Gallery of Rome shows a thousand years of ancient Roman culture. It has Canada's largest collection of classical items. It displays over 500 objects, from marble portraits to Roman jewelry. The gallery also has the Bratty Exhibit of Etruria. This part teaches about the Etruscans, a nearby civilization that Rome later took over.
The Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Gallery of Rome and the Near East shows the life and culture of societies under Roman rule. The same space also has the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Gallery of Byzantium. This covers the history of the Byzantine Empire from AD 330 to 1453. It shows important changes in early eastern Christianity. There are over 230 artifacts like jewelry, glasswork, and coins. They help tell the story of modern-day Istanbul.
The A. G. Leventis Foundation Gallery of Ancient Cyprus has about 300 artifacts. It focuses on art from Cyprus between 2200 and 30 BC. The collection includes a reconstructed open-air sanctuary. It also has a rare bronze statue of a man carrying a large copper block.
The Gallery of Africa: Egypt focuses on the life and afterlife of Ancient Egyptians. It has many artifacts, like farm tools, jewelry, and burial items. The exhibit includes several mummy cases. One is the beautiful gilded sarcophagus and mummy of Djedmaatesankh, a musician. Another is the mummy of Antjau, a wealthy landowner. Other items are the Book of the Dead of Amen-em-hat, a 7-meter-long scroll, and the Bust of Cleopatra. The Statue of Sekhmet is also on display. It shows Sekhmet, an ancient Egyptian goddess.
The Galleries of Africa: Nubia show objects from the ancient civilization of Nubia in modern-day Sudan. The Nubians were the first city-dwelling, educated society in Africa south of the Sahara. They were a main rival of Egypt.
The Gallery of the Bronze Age Aegean has over 100 objects. These include examples from the Cycladic, Minoan, Mycenaean, and Geometric periods of Ancient Greece. The collection ranges from 3200 BC to 700 BC. It has a marble head of a female figure and a glass necklace.
The Gallery of Greece has 1,500 artifacts. They cover the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods. The collection includes sculptures of gods, armor, and coins.
Canadian Galleries
The Daphne Cockwell Gallery of Canada: First Peoples shows the culture of Canada's first societies. These are the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada. The gallery has over 1,000 artifacts. They show the economic and social forces that shaped Native art.
The Royal Ontario Museum has a large collection of Northwest Coast Native art. It was collected by Reverend Dr. Richard Whitfield Large between 1899 and 1906. This "R. W. Large Collection" is very important because of its unique records. It was part of an exhibit created with the Heiltsuk Nation.
There is also a changing display of modern Native art. One area is for the works of early artist Paul Kane. A theater shows traditional storytelling. Near this gallery, the main staircase wraps around the Nisga'a and Haida Crest Poles.
The Sigmund Samuel Gallery of Canada used to display early Canadian items. Most were historical decorative and pictorial arts. It had about 560 artifacts. They covered the period from early European settlement to the start of the modern industrial era. The displays showed the French and British cultural heritage of Canada. A famous item was The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West. This gallery closed in 2022.
East Asian Galleries
The Chinese Galleries have four sections. These are the Bishop White Gallery of Chinese Temple Art, the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Gallery of China, the Matthews Family Court of Chinese Sculpture, and the ROM Gallery of Chinese Architecture.
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The Bishop White Gallery of Chinese Temple Art has three of the world's best-preserved temple wall paintings. These are from the Yuan dynasty (AD 1271–1386). It also has wooden sculptures of various bodhisattvas from the 12th to 15th centuries. Famous paintings include the Homage to the Highest Power, a Daoist wall painting from around 1300. Another is Paradise of Maitreya from 1298.
The Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Gallery of China has about 2,500 objects. They cover almost 7,000 years of Chinese history. The gallery is divided into five sections. Each section focuses on a different period of Chinese history. They display items from jade discs to furniture.
The Matthews Family Court of Chinese Sculpture has many sculptures. They cover 2,000 years of Chinese art. It also shows smaller objects that explore how religions grew in China. Notable items include Wei Bin's Temple Bell from 1518. Also, the companion statues of Kashyapa and Ananda are from the Tang dynasty. The gallery also has one of the Yixian glazed pottery luohans, a glazed sculpture from the 11th century AD.
The ROM Gallery of Chinese Architecture has one of the largest collections of Chinese architectural items outside of China. It is the first gallery of Chinese architecture in North America. Items include the Tomb of General Zu Dashou. This tomb has an altar, stone burial mound, and archway. The gallery also has a reconstruction of an Imperial Palace building from Beijing's Forbidden City. It also has a Ming-era tomb complex.
The Gallery of Korea is the only permanent gallery of Korean art in Canada. It shows about 260 items from the Korean peninsula. Furniture, pottery, metalwork, and paintings are displayed. They date from the 3rd to 20th centuries AD. They show the many achievements of Korean culture. The influence of Buddhism is shown with two statues. One is a śarīra casket, made to hold the remains of a Buddha.
The Herman Herzog Levy Gallery is the main place for East Asian exhibits that visit the museum.
The museum also used to have the Prince Takamado Gallery of Japan. It had the largest collection of Japanese artworks in Canada. It showed changing displays of ukiyo-e prints. It also had the only tea master collection in North America. Famous Japanese art pieces included Fan print with two bugaku dancers. The gallery was named after the late Japanese Prince Takamado.
European Galleries
The Samuel European Galleries have over 4,600 objects. They show the development of decorative arts in Europe from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The period rooms show how styles changed during the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, and Victorian times. Other collections include Judaica, Art Deco, and Arms and Armour. The Earl of Pembroke's Armour is in these galleries. It was made for William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke between 1550 and 1570. Another notable piece is the Otho tazza. This was one of 12 cups that made up the Aldobrandini Tazze. These cups showed the first 12 Roman emperors.
Accessibility
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The ROM offers programs and services to help many different people visit. These are available in English and French. They include:
- Tactile tours (for touching)
- Audio descriptions for people who are blind or have low vision
- Tactile books with braille, raised lines, large print, and color pictures
- Large-print floor plans and guides
- Hands-on galleries
- Gallery interpreters who lead active exploration activities
- American Sign Language interpretation, tours, and video podcasts
- Interactive touch screens
- A hearing loop system (for hearing aids)
- Assistive communication technology (Ubi-Duo) for real-time talks between deaf visitors and staff
Community Access Network
In 2008, the Royal Ontario Museum Community Access Network was created. It helps make the ROM more available to different communities. It gives free tickets to groups that help the community. Every year, thousands of tickets are given out. This program tries to remove things that might stop people from visiting. It aims to help the museum connect with, share with, and inspire more visitors. Partners include United Way of Greater Toronto and Boys & Girls Clubs of Canada.
Images for kids
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The museum's western façade facing Philosopher's Walk in 1922
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The McLaughlin Planetarium next to the museum. The planetarium was operated by the museum from 1968 to 2009.
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Arched and bay windows along the building's western façade with a very small section of the Crystal jutting out on the top
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The mosaic ceiling of the rotunda is covered predominantly in gold back-painted glass tiles
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Windows inside the eastern entrance to the museum
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The eastern façade of the 1933 expansion
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The Royal Ontario Museum from the southeast. The curatorial centre is visible to the west of the 1933 expansion.
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The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal from Bloor Street
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A replica skeleton of Futalognkosaurus inside the Hyacinth Gloria Chen Crystal Court
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Items on display in a vitrine built into the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal
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The entrance to the Royal Ontario Museum Bat Cave, an interactive gallery at the museum
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The museum's lobby, the Samuel Hall Currelly Gallery, houses several items from the museum's collection.
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The Patricia Harris Gallery of Costumes and Textiles holds around 200 artifacts from the museum's textile and costume collection.
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The temporary exhibition Being and Belonging: Contemporary Women Artists from the Islamic World and Beyond, at the Institute for Contemporary Culture gallery
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The second floor of the museum contains collections and samples of various animals past and present.
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Specimen of a Bengal tiger at the Royal Ontario Museum
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The museum has a large collection of birds from past centuries for viewing.
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The world's largest faceted cerussite, the Light of the Desert, on display at the Teck Suite of Galleries
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Fossils in the James and Louise Temerty Galleries of the Age of Dinosaurs and Gallery
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Fossils in the Gallery of the Age of Mammals
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Exhibits at the Shreyas and Mina Ajmera Gallery of Africa, the Americas and Asia-Pacific, one of several world culture galleries at the museum
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The Wirth Gallery of the Middle East explores civilizations from the Palaeolithic Age to 1900 AD found within the Fertile Crescent.
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The museum is home to an extensive collection of Roman artifacts in the Eaton Gallery of Rome and in the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Gallery of Rome and the Near East.
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The Gallery of Africa: Egypt includes a number of cartonnages.
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Canoes used by the First Nations at The Daphne Cockwell Gallery of Canada: First Peoples.
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Exhibits of early Canadian memorabilia on display at the Sigmund Samuel Gallery of Canada
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Works on exhibit in the Bishop White Gallery of Chinese Temple Art
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The Tomb of General Zu Dashou on display in the ROM Gallery of Chinese Architecture
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A Buddhist reliquary śarīra casket at the Gallery of Korea gallery
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Exhibits in the Samuel European Galleries
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An elevator with bilingual English/French signage at the museum
See also
In Spanish: Museo Real de Ontario para niños
- List of art museums
- List of museums in Toronto
