Like many others, Susan Woodward, an assistant curator at the museum, worried about how the building would function. “Whether we want to admit it or not, the ROM’s track record of maintenance is really poor,” she wrote in an e-mail to management. “The last thing we need to do is create a new building that augments maintenance issues…wasting future operational budgets.” But she also voiced aesthetic concerns, that Libeskind’s design was “aggressive, cold and uninviting,” and a recycled version of the architect’s other buildings.

Libeskind’s plan had at least as many fans as it had detractors; for a city accustomed to dull, grey, self-consciously underwhelming architecture, the Crystal’s elbows-out solution was undeniably refreshing. But other than token consultation, museum staff and many senior managers were shut out of the process.

The blue-ribbon committee that ultimately chose Libeskind’s vision was composed of Thorsell, prominent philanthropists and corporate leaders, and just one architect, Leslie Rebanks (Galen Weston’s brother-in-law). Thorsell’s voice in support of the design—he was its greatest cheerleader—always seemed to be the loudest. Libeskind, he said, was nothing short of “brilliant.” He called the meeting of the old stone ROM façade and the Libeskind Crystal “the most beautiful kiss in the history of architecture.”

The Crystal’s detractors outside the ROM—particularly Toronto architect Jack Diamond—felt Thorsell’s wrath. In a guest column he wrote for The Globe and Mail, Thorsell let it be known exactly what he thought of Diamond’s plan for Toronto’s new opera house and recent buildings by the architecture firm KPMB. “As Toronto’s local architects sustain the now generic International Style,” Thorsell wrote, “foreigners bring a unique statement to bear against the local scene.”

“William was totally in love with Libeskind’s design,” says one high-level museum functionary who has worked closely with Thorsell. “While it was under construction, during lunch hour you’d walk along Bloor and he’d be just standing there by himself looking at the thing with stars in his eyes.”