Architecture is a medium. Modern media planners can turn to it for lessons because ‘design it right and they will come’ applies equally to media plans and great architecture. Modern media plans are more than simple collections of creative messages – they have substance and form like the great buildings of our time.

This is my singular thought as I climb the limestone steps and move through the neo-Romanesque entrance to Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum. I pay the $16 admission, and set out, searching for the scale model of the new extension – Daniel Libeskind’s exploding crystals.

Forget the galleries, and the display cases. The museum’s creative content holds no interest for me right now. I’m looking for that little building. I’m looking for the medium – not the message – on this particular visit.

William Thorsell’s stint as CEO of the museum has been architecturally focused. The ROM expansion design competition drew submissions from all around the world, and the process of selecting the winning design generated more publicity for the ROM than any exhibit since Tut.

Here’s a CEO who recognizes the importance of building design – a man who understands that there’s more to a museum than an intelligent collection of artifacts. Here’s a man who understands the drawing power of ‘crystals’ housing the creative message – like a media plan housing the creative content.

Thorsell thinks this way because he has a media pedigree. He was, after all, the editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail for 10 years. He was the architect and lead contractor who oversaw many of the Globe’s expansions and extensions through the ’90s. Under Thorsell we saw the Globe move from old to new, from simple news coverage to involving stories, from judgment to diversity, and from constancy to doing better, faster.

Sylvia Fraser, in her February 2003 Toronto Life article about Thorsell, used the phrase ‘an apostle of change’ to describe his professional approach to newspapers and museums. It’s the perfect way to describe not only Thorsell, but smart architects – and smart media planners.

Speaking of change, Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario has announced its own version of ‘architect as drawing card.’ By mixing Ken Thomson’s money with a Frank Gehry design, the AGO has created its own version of a high-octane architectural cocktail. Destination is the name of the game. Toronto’s primary temples of culture are out to build their paid attendance even before hanging a painting or dusting off a Ming vase.

Architecture of a different kind, but no less interested in fulfilling visitor needs, was explored recently in a fascinating article in the National Post by Lianne George entitled ‘They didn’t want angels.’ This story examines two Canadian submissions to the Pentagon Memorial Competition.

The winner, from over 1,200 initial submissions, will create a memorial commemorating the deaths of 184 individuals following the crash of American Airlines flight 77 on Sept. 11. The Canadians, both U of T School of Architecture professors, employ what is called ‘Popular Contemporary Monument Design’ to their design challenge.

Michael Meredith’s design features a pedestal, sloping towards the Pentagon, with a clear view of 77’s tragic flight path. The pedestal is inscribed with 184 names. The old way of designing memorials might have called for a bronze statue of an eagle, but in Meredith’s contemporary design, the visitor becomes the statue. The old approach is frozen in time while this new approach is constantly changing as different visitors mount the pedestal. The old monument provides one version of grief while the new approach embraces as many forms of grief as there are grievers. The old approach is autocratic while the new approach is democratic. The old approach is old media – a single source communicating simultaneously to many respondents. Meredith’s new approach is new media – interactive and one-on-one.

And so we see imaginative design and the promise of wonderful buildings and memorials to come, thanks to a bold new way of thinking about architectural design. These minds clearly appreciate that their medium stands above and beyond their building’s tenants. Similarly, our best, contemporary media plans can also stand above and beyond the creative messaging being housed.

One approach we use at HYPN for ensuring that our media plans incorporate ‘Popular Contemporary Monument Design’ is through a process we call ‘media thematics.’ The media thematic for the brand being advertised comes from a combination of the brand’s essence and the key consumers’ characteristics.

Here’s an example: Say a brand is making a new health claim and it’s big news. And say the key consumer segment consists of older consumers who devour news through newspapers, news weeklies, all-news radio and news/documentary TV programming. The media thematic in this case is simply ‘news,’ so the media plan is designed with this core design element in mind.

The creative contains the news message, and the placement, driven by the plan, also contributes to the newsworthiness of the campaign. The plan has substance and stands above the messaging. Consumers actually interact with the plan.

Oh, and by the way, my trip to the ROM was a failure. After a half hour of ducking in and out of galleries, the information desk told me Libeskind’s scale model had been removed. I was living proof of the power of destination museums. And the building isn’t even built yet!

Rob Young is one of the founders of Toronto-based Harrison, Young, Pesonen & Newell. He can be reached at ryoung@hypn.com.