A rendering of the Polygon Gallery building, slated to open in 2017.
Long-established North Vancouver photography and media-arts centre Presentation House Gallery announced a lead gift today of $4 million, provided by Polygon Homes Ltd. and the Audain Foundation for the Visual Arts. The substantial gift also shepherds in a new identity for the gallery, to be renamed the Polygon Gallery when its new facility on North Vancouver’s waterfront opens in 2017.
Earlier this spring, we reported on the progress of plans for the new building, which has already garnered $2.5 million in funding from the City of North Vancouver, as well as more than $1 million in private donations, and is slated to open at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue. Designed by Patkau Architects, a well-known Vancouver-based architecture firm whose recent projects include the University of Manitoba’s ARTlab and the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, the new building promises to be operationally self-sustaining, and will feature a gift shop and café alongside exhibition and education space.
This $4 million gift (comprised of two gifts of $2 million each from Polygon Homes and the Audain Foundation) pushes the gallery’s fundraising efforts past the halfway mark of its $15 million goal. According to Presentation House Gallery’s director and curator, Reid Shier, this contribution represents the largest gift the institution has ever received. “When we move into our new home in 2017,” Shier says in a press release, “we will be thrilled to open under a new name that reflects our many-faceted programs and world-class exhibitions.”
