ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM: DAWN OF LIFE

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Firm: Reich&Petch

Building Phase: Completed 2023

The Willner Madge Gallery, Dawn of Life will trace the story of life from its earliest beginnings, about four billion years ago, to the emergence of the first dinosaurs and mammals. The Gallery will complement the James and Louise Temerty Galleries of the Age of Dinosaurs and the Reed Gallery of the Age of Mammals on the second floor of the ROM.

The Dawn of Life Exhibit will bring its visitors through a variety of visual and audio experiences, telling the story of the origins of life on Earth. The Exhibit is divided into a number of zones that each cover an era of time and how life evolved during that period from Precambrian to the beginnings of the Triassic period.

The goal of the exhibit is to convey the dense amount history and research of these time periods to its visitors in a concise and interesting way without overwhelming the visitor. Each time period contains both specimen displays and cases to showcase the vast collections the ROM has to offer as well as custom interactive components to engage the visitor in variety of activities. A big challenge of exhibit design is wayfinding, ensuring how the visitors will flow through the space in an easy way to understand the story. Through the use of graphics and shape and placement of the display elements, the Dawn of Life exhibit will hopefully nudge the victors to learn the most that they can about each era.