AGO Expansion Team Selected

AGO's proposed expansion will be its seventh since its founding in 1900. AGO's most famous expansion was its previous one, "Transformation AGO," carried out by the office of Frank Gehry and opened to the public in November 2008. 

Whereas Tranformation AGO enlarged AGO's downtown Toronto home by approximately 100,000 square feet, AGO Global Contemporary will add roughly half that, all devoted to the museum's "growing modern and contemporary collection," per a statement from the museum. Gehry's expansion cost $276 million, while the proposed AGO Global Contemporary expansion is expected to cost $42 million.

"Annabelle Selldorf, of Selldorf Architects will lead the design," the statement says, "in collaboration with Toronto-based Don Schmitt of Diamond Schmitt and Brian Porter of Six Nations of the Grand River’s Two Row Architect as Indigenous architect."

Selldorf Architects was selected as "a leader in museum design," according to AGO Director and CEO Stephan Jost, while Diamond Schmitt "is putting Toronto on the world stage" and Two Row Architects is an award winner in "social equity design." 

The team will be striving to achieve net-zero carbon certification with the expansion, making it one of the few museums to accomplish it. Concept designs are expected to be released to the public later in the year.