Archinect - News

Michael Maltzan Looks to Inuit Art as Inspiration for a Canadian Museum Project

2021-03-27T13:28:00-04:00

It was a trip to the Arctic that gave a Los Angeles-based architect the inspiration for the new 36,000 sqft expansion of the Winnipeg Art Gallery opening this weekend in the nation's seventh-largest city.

Qaumajuq, the Inuit art centre at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Michael Maltzan Architecture with associate Cibinel Architecture. Photo Lindsay Reid.

Michael Maltzan's design for Qaumajuq, a center for Inuit art almost a decade in the making sprang out of an excursion he took in 2013 with the museum's director Stephen Borys.

Qaumajuq, the Inuit art Centre at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Photo by Lindsay Reid.

After being tapped the year before for the design and completion of the IAC, Maltzan began studying both the artistic traditions and topographies endemic to the Inuit people in areas hundreds of miles to the north.

Qaumajuq, the Inuit art Centre at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Photo by Lindsay Reid.

“It changed everything,” Borys told the New York Times. “When he got back to L.A., Micha...

Michael Maltzan's Winnipeg Art Gallery Inuit Art Center set for late 2020 opening

2020-02-13T14:36:00-05:00

The new Inuit Art Centre (IAC) at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Winnipeg, Canada designed by Los Angeles-based architects Michael Maltzan Architecture is set to open its doors later this year.

A statement published on the Winnipeg Art Gallery website states that the space is "constructed to house the bulk of the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s and the Government of Nunavut’s collection of 13,000 Inuit carvings, textiles prints and beyond that represent the largest collection of its kind in the world" and that "the new centre will make it possible to display works that were previously relegated to storage."

The statement adds that "A digitization project is also underway to make the entirety of the collection available online."

The 40,000-square-foot addition will feature a double-height vestibule that includes a series of internal shelving displays filled with heritage objects. The objects make up collections that would typically be held in a secluded "vault" but that are being brought out for...

Michael Maltzan selected to design Inuit Art and Learning Centre for WAG

2012-11-28T13:58:00-05:00

The award-winning American architect Michael Maltzan has been selected to design the Inuit Art and Learning Centre at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. The Centre will house both the WAG’s celebrated collection of contemporary Inuit art, the largest of its kind in the world, and the Studio Art and Learning programs. Michael Maltzan will be the Prime and Design Architect for this historic project, and supporting his team will be Cibinel Architects, Ltd, led by principal George Cibinel, acting as the Associate and Technical Architect in Winnipeg.

This past August, 65 prospective architectural teams from 15 countries responded to the Call for Expressions of Interest for the IALC project. In September, the architect selection committee narrowed it down to six finalists who submitted expanded proposals and were interviewed last month. The selection committee was unanimous in choosing Michael Maltzan as the winning architect, and this recommendation subsequently received overwhelming approval...