Archinect - News

A Canadian homebuilder's $100 million gift brought HdM's Vancouver Art Gallery expansion project back from the dead

2022-01-31T13:58:00-05:00

After years of stops and starts, triumphant announcements and long silences – there is finally momentum, once again. Gallery officials are meeting regularly with the city, city hall is re-examining the term of the lease agreement, a public open house is scheduled for March, and shovels could be in the ground next year. All it took was a single private donation – of $100-million.

The firm’s repeatedly revised design was originally set to be its first commission in the country for an expansion effort that has been mulled since first being announced in 2014. Vancouver Art Gallery has been balking at the effort since the early 2000s without naming a winner. Herzog & de Meuron's latest version includes a new woven copper facade and was developed with input from four Indigenous artist design consultants representing the native communities of Vancouver.

The gift from philanthropist home building magnate Michael Audain was announced on November 4th and came with quite a few of his own design “suggestions” that reportedly touched on the vertical orientation of the floor plan and the original martial of the now-remade facade. The museum is still looking for about $160 million (CAD) in funding to complete the $400 million capital project, but supporters are optimistic that Audain’s gift has steered the project back on track for a 2023 groundbreaking and realization s...

Herzog & de Meuron's new Vancouver Art Gallery inches $40m closer to realization and unveils final designs

2019-01-25T14:53:00-05:00

Plans for a new Vancouver Art Gallery—in the works for more than a decade, and feared by many to have stalled indefinitely—received a major boost this week with the announcement of a $40m lead gift from the local philanthropic Chan family. In recognition of what the institution’s director Kathleen Bartels called an act of “extraordinary generosity”, the Vancouver Art Gallery’s new building will be named the Chan Centre for the Visual Arts.

On the occasion of the impressive Chan family gift announcement, the Vancouver Art Gallery also presented the anticipated final designs for its new 300,000-square-foot home, which is ever so slowly inching closer to realization.

West Georgia Street entrance © Herzog & de Meuron

Herzog & de Meuron had won the international competition back in April 2014, beating out other noteworthy museum designers, such as SANAA, Tod Williams Billie Tsien, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The winning entry's initial design concept was unveiled a year later in September 2015. Perkins+Will is the executive architect on the project.

Gallery Courtyard view of entry pavilion at Cambie Street © Herzog & de Meuron

"Herzog & de Meuron have designed the Vancouver Art Gallery’s new museum as a sculptural, symmetrical, upright building combining opaque and transparent surfaces, with larger volumes concentrated at the top and minimal mass at the bottom," explains the project description. "By lifting the bulk of th...

Herzog & de Meuron's concept for new Vancouver Art Gallery released

2015-09-29T20:08:00-04:00

After beating out KPMB Architects, SANAA, Tod Williams Billie Tsien and DS+R to win the project back in April of 2014, Herzog & de Meuron have now released the first look at their design for the new Vancouver Art Gallery, a significant update on the Gallery's old neoclassical building and the firm's first in Canada.

The new Gallery will not only double the amount of exhibition space to over 85,000 square feet, but also relocate the institution a few blocks into a quickly-developing sector of Vancouver's downtown. The formal update is pretty extreme – the prior Gallery's columns, front steps and flanking lions bestowed a formal, traditional vibe, while Herzog & de Meuron's stack of wooden and transparent volumes is top-loaded so that "the modest, almost domestic scale will enhance the character of openness and visibility for everyone," according to Jaques Herzog in a statement.

For more information on the Gallery's redesign, check out our interview with museum director Kathleen S. Bart...

Interview with Vancouver Art Gallery's director: how will Herzog & de Meuron's new museum impact Canadian architecture?

2014-04-30T12:39:00-04:00

As announced y esterday on Archinect, the Vancouver Art Gallery has selected the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron to design their new building. The new museum’s site will double the footprint of the old neoclassical building, and relocate the museum to a newly densifying area of Vancouver’s downtown. Herzog & de Meuron were chosen from a prestigious shortlist due to their sensitivity to place when designing institutional structures, creating forms attentive and responsive to the local area. Archinect spoke with the museum’s director, Kathleen S. Bartels, about what this means for the museum’s legacy and the future of Canadian architecture.

Archinect: What in particular of Herzog & de Meuron’s previous work appealed to the Vancouver Art Museum?

Kathleen S. Bartels: What we found so interesting and inspiring about Herzog & de Meuron’s work is that they’re extraordinarily creative. They’re real innovators in museum design, they’ve built twenty museums around the world. They have an ability ...

Herzog & de Meuron wins their first Canadian project with designing the new Vancouver Art Gallery

2014-04-29T13:46:00-04:00

Herzog & de Meuron will be designing the new Vancouver Art Gallery, as announced today by the institution. The space of the current 300,000 sq.ft Gallery will be doubled and provide facilities to support the museum's continuously increasing number of collections, exhibitions, and programs. Among Herzog & de Meuron's notable cultural institution projects worldwide, the new Vancouver Art Gallery will be the Swiss firm's first Canadian project. Conceptual designs are expected to be revealed in early 2015.

HdM was selected out of a star-studded shortlist that consisted of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (New York), Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (New York), KPMB Architects (Toronto), and SANAA (Tokyo). The finalists, who were announced in January, were chosen out of 75 firms from 16 countries who submitted to an open Request for Qualifications process issued by the Gallery.

Here's more detail about the project from the Vancouver Art Gallery:

"The Vancouver Art Gallery’s Architect Selection...

Vancouver Art Gallery opens up shortlist ring to five international design heavyweights

2014-01-09T21:04:00-05:00

The heat is on in the architectural competition for Vancouver Art Gallery's new downtown home on a site at West Georgia and Cambie Streets. From a pool of 75 applicants, the gallery narrowed down a shortlist of five firms — all of which are no strangers to designing world-class exhibition spaces.

The five finalists are:

Diller Scofidio + Renfro (New York)
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (New York)
Herzog & de Meuron (Basel)
KPMB Architects (Toronto)
SANAA (Tokyo)

Could this be the welcome redemption time for TWBTA after it was announced just yesterday that DS+R's MoMA expansion will officially raze the much beloved American Folk Art Museum? (*ding ding ding!*)