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. 

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.

"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 the structure high above the street, the design allows light and air to filter down to an active, open-air courtyard below."

"The project for the new Vancouver Art Gallery has a civic dimension that can contribute to the life and identity of the city, in which many artists of international reputation live and work," commented Christine Binswanger, H&dM Partner in Charge. "The building now combines two materials, wood and glass, both inseparable from the history and making of the city. We developed a facade out of glass logs which is pure, soft, light, establishing a unique relation to covered wooden terraces all around the building."

"The new Vancouver Art Gallery is a vertical building, distinctly spectacular at first sight, with an arrangement that resonates with the place where it is built. It offers ample outdoor spaces that are sunny in summer and protected from rain in winter, to suit the climate and life in British Columbia. Visitors to the building will be able to perceive Vancouver’s urbanity and its amazing natural setting in many different ways."

With $135 million in total private and public sector funding secured, the gallery now plans to raise the remaining funds to cover the $300 million construction cost price tag, plus a $50 million endowment.