Days away from the unveiling of grand plans for the place, the sun was beginning to set on a mostly empty parking lot on the eastern edge of downtown. Two guys emerged from a camper van and tried to figure out the parking-ticket dispenser. Commuters hustled diagonally across the lot toward the SkyTrain station. A bunch of Car2Go rentals sat waiting for drivers.
Could this be the plot of land that transforms Vancouver?
On Tuesday, the Vancouver Art Gallery will publicly reveal the concept design for its 300,000-square-foot building proposed for this block. The design has been kept under wraps publicly, but has been shown to a few – including City Hall types, potential donors and others connected to the gallery. It has been described by various people as an out-of-the-box design unlike anything architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron has done before, a spectacular but fairly modest design that’s sure to surprise people – and generate an endless amount of debate.
“It’s really going to stimulate discussion and controversy for months to come,” says Vancouver’s outgoing chief planner Brian Jackson, who has seen the design. “But, you know, I think that’s really positive for the future of dialogue on architecture in Vancouver,” he quickly adds.
Ten years ago, the Vancouver Art Gallery identified the need to expand – and concluded that a move was necessary. The search was on for a new site, an architect and money to pay for it.
It has been a decade of false starts, funding failures, occasional flared tempers and some frustration – while other, albeit smaller, visual art infrastructure projects have moved forward – including a museum being built by the philanthropist who once co-led the campaign for a new VAG. But there is huge anticipation for next week’s reveal – and hope that it will kickstart a vital capital campaign.
“With all projects like this, it’s a marathon, right? It’s not a sprint,” says VAG director Kathleen Bartels, saying the timeline has not been a concern for her. “All projects have their ups and downs and delays, and for good reason.”
Bartels became director of the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2001. Two years later, the wheels were set in motion for a master planning process, which ultimately identified the need to more than double the VAG’s current size and determined that onsite expansion was not possible. (Nevertheless, this is an option that skeptics of the VAG’s plans return to repeatedly.) After considering – and even landing on – several other sites, the VAG ultimately settled on a block of city-owned land once called Larwill Park – that parking lot – six blocks east of the current site.
In 2013, city council voted to give the VAG a long-term lease for two-thirds of that land, the block to be shared with an office tower. There were conditions attached, including a requirement to raise $100-million from the federal government and $50-million from the province (in addition to $50-million the provincial government already granted) by April 30, 2015.
Not only was that condition not met – neither government gave a penny and the federal Conservatives were particularly strong in their assertion that they would not – but when Bartels told the Vancouver Sun ahead of the deadline that the VAG thought the city’s funding milestones were unreasonable, a chill set in on city-VAG relations.
April 30 came and went without the money raised. (A formal extension for that deadline has not been granted; the city is waiting until after the federal election.) June – the promised design reveal date – came and went. The launch was eventually re-scheduled for Sept. 29. (Look for a funding announcement about contributions from the VAG board on Tuesday as well.) Beyond the fundraising issue, a source says the city was frustrated over the past few months with designs and ideas that were not in compliance with the conditions – designs that penetrated the view corridor or took up the whole block, for example.
According to Jackson, the design to be revealed next week is “quite far” from the initial submissions.
“It responded well to the issues that were raised,” says Jackson, who will leave his post Nov. 6.
There remains a strong desire at city hall for the project to succeed – even if there has been a decline in confidence. “Reserved optimism” was how one source described it. The city is keen to see how the formal launch goes next week – and how the public responds.
As former chief city planner Brent Toderian puts it: “I believe the city has a strong political will, but not necessarily at any cost.”
One huge area of support for a new VAG has come from Vancouver’s visual arts community.
Artist Paul Wong points to all sorts of reasons the current building is inadequate – it leaks, loading in art is problematic, the experience is not user-friendly. “Simply, it’s outgrown that place,” he says.
Wong, who has seen the concept design, describes it as a sort of “art park” that promotes public accessibility.
“I think people will be proud of it and excited by it,” he says.
“Hopefully it will generate some buzz out there,” he adds. “And for sure not all of it’s going to be positive and that’s cool too.”
While artists feel strongly that the city needs a new gallery, there has been some public ambivalence. People here have a strong attachment to the current building – a former courthouse renovated more than 30 years ago by Arthur Erickson. It’s a central gathering place. There’s also some feeling that the cost of a new gallery, at a time of restraint, is not feasible.
The VAG estimates the new gallery would cost $350-million, including $50-million for an operating endowment. But that estimate hasn’t budged over the years – despite rising construction costs. When I asked Bartels about that this week, she said they’re still at the conceptual design phase, they haven’t had latest costs, and they’re sticking with the $350-million figure. She says the gallery has so far raised a little over $54-million (not including Tuesday’s announcement). She was unable to say how much of that money has been spent to date.
The most vocal critic of the project has been Bob Rennie, a real estate marketer and contemporary art collector (one of the world’s top 200 collectors, according to Art News) who chairs the North American Acquisitions Committee for the Tate Modern and sits on the board of the Art Institute of Chicago. Rennie left the VAG board shortly after Bartels arrived and they are not on speaking terms. But he says his issue with the new VAG is not personal.
“As the entire discussion in the city turns to architecture, where is the conversation about the art?” he said this week.
“And the philanthropy that’s needed to pull this off is at the risk of all other cultural institutions,” he added. “Mid- and smaller-sized cultural institutions and non-profits will suffer because there’s only so much philanthropy in a city of 603,000 people."
Rennie, who earlier proposed several satellite galleries instead of one big new one, has a new suggestion: that the city sell the block and give the earnings ($100-million, he figures) to the VAG, which could use the funds to expand its current site.
A huge shocker in the VAG saga occurred three years ago when philanthropist Michael Audain announced he would build his own gallery in Whistler. Audain, who has a deep love for visual art and a superb collection, was once chair of the VAG’s relocation committee and one of the key people promoting the new gallery (along with Bartels and then board chair David Aisenstat).
“I should stress that this doesn’t diminish, in any way, my determination to see the Vancouver Art Gallery get relocated,” he said at the time. “And I’ll continue to be very supportive of that. But it now appears that’s going to be a longer-term exercise.”
Dreamed up and announced years into the VAG’s process, the Audain Art Museum has quickly risen in a wooded area between two Whistler parking lots and is set to open in early 2016 (to the public in late January or early February with an official grand opening March 5) – at least a year before the VAG even breaks ground, if it stays on schedule.
Two other visual art institutions will also beat the VAG (with a current scheduled completion date of 2021) to fruition. A new campus for Emily Carr University of Art + Design is scheduled to open in fall 2017.
And in North Vancouver, Presentation House Gallery will begin construction in early 2016 for its new waterfront facility, to be named the Polygon Gallery (thanks to lead funding from Audain’s company Polygon Homes and the Audain Foundation). With fall 2017 as the targeted opening date, it is touting itself as “Vancouver’s first new public art gallery of the 21st century.” If you’re the VAG, that’s got to hurt.
Audain, who is honorary board chair at the VAG, indicates a donation to the VAG will be made “in due course” and he remains a strong supporter.
“I’m confident that Vancouver will … get the art gallery that it deserves,” he said this week.
But that confidence is hardly universal.
Toderian, now a city planning consultant with Toderian UrbanWorks, believes there is real public interest in growing Vancouver’s cultural infrastructure, but adds he’s not optimistic that a new VAG will be built in the near future.
“I think even if the VAG achieves considerable excitement and momentum with their new design, achieving full funding in the short term is a longshot,” he wrote in an e-mail from Europe this week. “However, I support the VAG putting their best foot forward and planning/designing for the future. Sometimes you have to put out a compelling vision, do an exciting design, and wait for conditions to change in your favour. Then at least, you’re ready for the game-changer if and when it comes.”