Imagine being asked to give an old lady a facelift, when she has had several already, and then dress her up to look with-it without looking like a tart, or a tart making a vain attempt to look like a lady. That is exactly the task given to world-renowned architect Frank Gehry by the powers-that-be at the Art Gallery of Ontario(AGO), who want an outstanding make-over for the gallery. The hometown boy, who left home in 1947 when he was 18, came back to tackle the assignment. He has done so with considerable grace and charm.

On January 28, AGO's Walker Court was filled with an air of suspense as invited guests and media waited to see what Gehry, architect and urban planner of acclaim, had in mind for the redevelopment of the art gallery. Some may have been disappointed with the unveiled proposal, but the majority showed real pleasure at the solution that Gehry had found for this very difficult project.

His design shows that he is sensitive to the location of the AGO. It is surrounded by picturesque Victorian houses and Grange Park, and the Grange itself, the original Georgian home of the gallery. These might easily be overshadowed and overwhelmed by a modern building of the kind of radical design that is so closely identified with this architect, who can without a doubt be described as the most famous of our age. Gehry's solution shows restraint. Yet, it definitely takes no backseat to the quirky design by British architect William Alsop for the addition to the Ontario College of Art and Design that is currently rising just around the corner from the AGO.

Gehry, now almost 75, grew up in this neighbourhood, not far from the gallery. He understands it, and after taking a recent walk through it, discovered that he had an unexpected affection for it. He noticed that it has changed little since he left when his family moved to California. "The neighbourhood for me didn't look much different. I saw this area as I saw it as a kid. I found I had a lot of feeling for the neighbourhood, [more] than I imagined."

There are the memories of his first time coming to the very place where he unveiled the frontal design of the future gallery that features an elegant, curved 600-foot canopy of glass and titanium. He was eight years old when his mother first brought him to Walker Court, the historic heart of the AGO. Its high columns and the names of various First Nations listed near the ceiling will be highlighted when the conversion of the gallery is completed in the fall of 2007. Walker Court will have a glass ceiling that allows it to be flooded with light. It will also be the site of a revolutionary staircase that winds its way up to the new centre for contemporary art. Breathtaking in its simplicity, yet "baroque" in nature as Gehry stated, it is a daring piece of architecture that leaves no doubt as to whose brainchild it is.

The architect realized that to reinvent the gallery without tearing it down completely required him to start the redesign from the inside out. "I am not a classicist, but I felt it was necessary to bring Walker Court back to its importance." He then explained that while it is comparatively easy to show with models how he envisions the building's exterior, the interior restructuring is not so easy to present. "It is hard to show the changes in a model . . . the interior change will be incredible," he stated. Just what the interior spaces will look like will be revealed in future models as the design progresses.

One part of the restructuring that he feels he has not as yet solved to his satisfaction is how the Grange and its park will be melded into the new design. It was evident from the way he spoke that he cares very much that this park and its building remain viable features for future generations. It is in this little park that he spent considerable time as a child.

Something else became evident as he spoke about the project. You can take a boy out of Canada, but it seems you cannot take Canada out of the boy. He loves hockey, and he loves the curves that skaters make on the ice. Such curves are the inspiration for the staircase, he admitted. At the same time he boyishly let on that a highlight of the day for him was the presence of three hockey greats in the audience, current Maple Leaf player Mats Sundin, and former players Ken Dryden, and Senator Frank Mahovlich.

While the site of the AGO puts definite constraints on Gehry, he also has to be sure that his ideas for the addition and renovation do not overstep its budget of about $195 million. Still, considering such constraints, he has come up with a solution that gives Toronto a building of distinction, yet one that respects the nature of its neighbourhood and the nature of Toronto itself. As he pointed out while walking with the media from model to model of various design ideas that preceded the final version, he thinks little of the much quoted phrase, "the Bilbao effect."

He said Toronto cannot be compared to Bilbao. That Basque city is a stark industrial town near the Bay of Biscay, home to steel mills, cement factories, and chemical companies. It is undergoing a complete remake of its aging infrastructure. And while his Guggenheim Museum there is a strong calling card for tourists, it is only a small part of the total transformation of that city. Toronto, of course, is undergoing a major building boom in the arts with two other museums, the ROM and Gardiner, having additions built and a new opera house under construction, but its nature is very different from Bilbao.

What counts here is that Gehry has managed to increase the original building by 20 percent, add another 97,000 square feet of newly built space and has given curators 40 percent more space to display art among other features. The new AGO is also about giving a home to the $300 million art collection that billionaire Ken Thomson has donated to the gallery. In addition to the collection, he has also donated $50 million toward construction, and both the federal and provincial governments have donated another $24 million each through the SuperBuild program. Raising the remainder of the $195 million is the responsibility of the gallery's board of directors.

The Gehry design will also open the AGO to the outside. People on the street will get a look inside, and they will be able to see the staircase that spirals upward. When asked why he chose titanium for the exterior of the building, including on the facade of a four-storey south wing that overlooks Grange Park, he pointed out that it turns golden on grey, wintery days. Since Toronto has its share of grey days during its long winters, it is the perfect medium to uplift the mood. He also said, with a smile, that he is not quite sure yet how he will prevent snow from collecting on the canopy and other angled surfaces. He obviously is aware of the concerns shown by many over the Libeskind crystal that will snake around the ROM, which is seen as a catch basin for heavy snowfalls. It has undergone some changes in design, perhaps also to answer that concern.

At present the AGO is the 10^th largest art museum in North America. When its renovations are completed, it will contain 10,000 new works in its permanent collection in  addition to what it now owns. These include not only the Thomson collection of such Canadian artists as Paul Kane, Tom Thomson, Cornelius Krieghoff and Lawren Harris, but also 18^th and 19^th century European portrait sculpture, and the recently rediscovered 17^th century Peter Paul Rubens work, The Massacre of the Innocent. In addition there is the Fick-Eggert Archive of more than 300 works on paper and documents from the circle of early 20^th century artists, who comprised the avant-garde Cologne Dada group. The public will also finally be able to view recent acquisitions of collections of historical African and Australian Aboriginal art. At the same time, the new design will give greater prominence to the gallery's Moore collection and other sculptures in a 450-foot gallery on the north side of the building, visible from the outside.

Clearly, the gallery curators, the major fund contributor and Gehry kept in mind when they arrived at the final design that Torontonians want an art gallery that expresses their character, a collective openness to the world that visitors from outside the continent often find strange, yet attractive, even perplexing. Gehry's AGO will mirror this in the best possible way.