Site of the proposed new Vancouver Art Gallery at the corner of Cambie Street and West Georgia Street, June 2013 / photo Hubert Kang
It’s a nondescript parking lot at the edge of downtown, yet for the past eight years, this three-acre concrete slab has been the most coveted and contested battleground in recent Vancouver history. The settling of its fate this past April reduced bureaucrats and corporate knights to tears of joy. “It was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had in my lifetime,” says Kathleen Bartels, director of the Vancouver Art Gallery, of the day city council voted unanimously in favour of leasing the lion’s share of the block to the VAG for a new purpose-built gallery estimated at $350-million. The announcement kicked off what insiders call a love fest. “People from all walks of life were hugging and crying,” Bartels recalls. “City counsellors said they’d never seen anything like it before. It was an extraordinary time.”
VAG staff didn’t have much time to bask in glory before rolling out the next battle campaign: fundraising. By mid-2015, they’ll need to secure $100 million from the feds and $50 million more from the BC government’s total $100-million commitment. By the end of 2015, 75 per cent of total building costs must be confirmed. “We’re still in the quiet phase, wrapping up pledges from our closest supporters,” says Bartels of the $40 million already promised by the private sector. They’ll need about $110 million more in private funding, but Bartels believes that’s doable, especially because they’re aiming to get an architect in place by early 2014 and a conceptual design confirmed by the end of that year.
As for the look of the new 95,000-square-metre monument to culture, Bartels offers, “We’ll cast a broad, international net, but we hope that many Canadian architects come forward.” While city officials have their own big-picture dreams for neighbourhood revitalization, with the new VAG anchoring a “cultural precinct,” functionality is key for VAG staffers. Plans include a 300-seat auditorium, 3,000 square metres in retail space, an 8,000-square-metre vault for the VAG’s collection of 10,000-plus works, and more than double its current exhibition space, for a total of 26,000 square metres. Bartels’s relocation drumbeat has always focused on artists and programming: “Vancouver has so many great emerging and highly recognized artists. They deserve to be shown in a world-class building that matches their ambitions,” she says. She hopes they’re breaking concrete at the fabled parking lot by early 2016 and popping champagne corks at the opening in 2019.
This is an article from the Fall 2013 issue of Canadian Art. To read more from this issue, please visit its table of contents.
