Hear Michael Awad, Lisa Rochon, Christian Giroux and Daniel Young debate and explore the phenomenon of architecture as spectacle and its impact on everything from individual users to urban issues

Peter Doig talks about his work with the AGO’s Director of Exhibitions, Bruce Ferguson.

An interview by the Toronto Star’s architecture columnist Christopher Hume with celebrated architect and Toronto native Frank Gehry, who designed the 2006 expansion of the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Artist and urbanist Michael Awad discusses his exhibition, The Entire City Project.

Luis Jacob's Habitat is a series of tableaux comprised of 1970s and 1980s furniture. Jacob discusses Habitat within the framework of the philosophical and cultural possibilities of social interaction and the evolution of his past artistic practice.

Richard S. Wortman will discuss the role of myth, symbol and ritual in the exercise of monarchical power in the age of Catherine the Great.

Anne Odom will explore the various political and cultural messages Catherine aimed to impart as she placed her most important commissions.

David Wistow introduces Catherine’s close circle of famous, and not so famous men and women, from son Grand Duke Paul and acquaintances Princess Dashkova and philosopher Voltaire, to long-time lover Grigory Orlov.

Over a billion dollars of new cultural architecture is rising up in Toronto. Radical designs, huge campaigns, great improvements and ceaseless opportunities. What will the arts, the city and the institutions themselves look like after the doors open to a new generation of arts-goers?

Dr Kenneth Bartlett traces Catherine’s interest in the ideas of the French Enlightenment philosophes.