You don’t have to go to school to see that education isn’t what it used to be.

Pretty soon, that will be clear to anyone wandering past the corner of Yonge and Gould where Ryerson University is constructing its new Student Learning Centre, the most exciting building to appear in this neighbourhood in decades.

Forget the old days of airless classrooms, squeaky blackboards, fluorescent fixtures and tomb-like silence; in the new world of academe the hallowed halls have morphed into open expanses filled with light and other people.

Photo gallery: Ryerson glass building



Designed by Norway’s leading architectural export, Snohetta, with Toronto’s Zeidler Partnership, the centre will be an exquisite glass sculpture that addresses the city as well as the Ryerson campus. Fully transparent, it will expose the university to the city as it lets in the light, until now a rare commodity at the school.

“It’s a library,” Ryerson president Sheldon Levy explains, “but in a 21st-century way.”

“It actually has no books,” adds Snohetta co-founder, Craig Dykers. “It’s more like the traditional salon.”

“This building,” says Levy, “puts students in the middle of things.”

In other words, the centre isn’t just something to look at, an architectural artifact, but a space to experience. Though only time will tell, the signs look good. Models and computer renderings show a seven-storey building, corners removed, walls tilted, open at street level where a wide avenue of stairs leads up to a covered square.

Inside, each floor has its own character. The sixth, for example, called “the Beach,” is a large terraced room with seating scattered throughout and little else. As much as anything, it looks like a great place to hold a party, a fact that should not be misconstrued as criticism. After all, the new educational model assumes that learning is best done in groups.

From cloister to open concept, teaching has progressed from self-directed and one-on-one to group study and now, “disruptive learning.” Whispering has given way to the buzz of students happily collaborating.

The centre has a space for different needs; on some floors, rooms will have to be booked, on others, there are no rooms.

As Dykers likes to say, we’ve gone from the medieval notion of the university as a kind of monastery for scholars to the ancient Greek ideal of the agora, or marketplace, where people exchange goods as well as ideas.

This same approach can be seen on the exterior, which cleverly balances the retail on Yonge and the basement below, with an open public square on the second level. It leads effortlessly to a lobby where a second grand stairwell goes up to the floors above.

But if it all sounds like fun and games, keep in mind that there will be 2,000 study spaces in the new centre, which also connects to Ryerson’s 1970s library next door. The two buildings stand at opposite ends of the cultural and architectural spectrum. The newer of the pair is transparent, open and outward-looking; the older cut off and self-contained. When you enter the latter, you leave the city behind. Enter the former, you bring it with you.

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Given that the building sits just metres from downtown’s busiest intersection and mall, it also plays a role in the daily drama of the city. In addition to two floors of shops, it will serve as beacon, landmark and icon of the new Toronto, which, like Ryerson, is being transformed.

Construction of the $112 million building will begin in January, and be finished in 2015. The province has committed $45 million; the rest must still be raised.