Panellists at a public hearing on the relocation of the Vancouver Art Gallery Thursday painted a picture of a vibrant, purpose-built structure in the heart of the downtown core, a community landmark that would foster artistic and cultural enrichment.
Visitors would enter into a spacious community gathering area and continue on to large gallery spaces designed with art exhibitions in mind. Theatres and lecture halls would offer educational programs to children.
Such visions, along with a growing number of visitors, are precisely why VAG officials say the gallery’s current location, in an old courthouse on Hornby Street, just won’t cut it any more.
“We are literally bursting at the seams,” VAG director Kathleen Bartels told the crowd at the Cultch Historic Theatre in Vancouver’s east side Thursday evening. “The continued growth and development of this organization depend on building a new gallery at a new site.”
Officials had looked at numerous expansion options, but none seemed feasible at the gallery’s current location, the panellists noted.
“We looked at going sideways, backwards, up and down,” VAG board chair David Aisenstat said. “At the end of the day, it was very, very clear that on that site we could not accommodate our needs – certainly not without destroying what’s … an important piece of architecture.”
Cost premiums, closing the site for up to two years for renovations and constraints associated with the courthouse building’s heritage designation also stood in the way.
The gallery’s proposed new location is on a former bus depot site at Cambie and Georgia streets, often called Larwill Park, across from the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
Architect Richard Henriquez put forward the idea of creating a two-block development that would incorporate the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, in case city council decides not to give up all of the Larwill Park site for the gallery.
The VAG was founded in 1931 and is the largest public art museum in Western Canada. It received 3.5 million visitors in the past 10 years, including 400,000 children.
The relocation project is estimated to cost about $350 million.
awoo@vancouversun.com
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