Artist renderings revealed for new Kingston, Ont. arts centre

New architectural renderings have been released for the major revamp of one of Kingston’s art galleries. The Agnes Etherington art centre on Queen’s University campus is set to receive a three-storey addition.

It’s a fixture of Kingston’s arts and culture scene and now the community is getting a first look at how the Agnes Etherington arts centre’s footprint will be expanded.

The museum, which is situated on Queen’s campus, has released two artist renderings of what the planned three-storey addition will look like.

“This art centre is doing it differently,” said Emelie Chhangur, director and curator of the Agnes Etherington arts centre. “We’re going through a community-engaged design process which gathers community input in the building of Agnes’s future cities. It takes into account our present moment, our decolonial moment, the truth and reconciliation calls to action.”

An exterior view from university avenue shows a new curvilinear structure attached to the historic Etherington house.

The museum said it will support a 200 per cent increase in exhibition and programming space and the first-ever indigenous self-determination area allowing Indigenous community members to engage with culturally significant artifacts currently residing at Agnes.

“Museums of the path of the future can no longer look like those of Canada’s colonial past, so I felt very committed to taking this opportunity to really be future-oriented,” Chhangur said.

The historic house itself will be turned into an artist’s live-in residence.

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Toronto-based firm KPMB architects took the project lead in 2022. The project, dubbed Agnes Reimagined, is paid for in large part by a $75-million donation from Bader philanthropies, a foundation formed by Queen’s University benefactors Alfred and Isabel Bader.

“Our other renderings point to the direction that we’re going,” Chhangur said, pointing out the “large porches to hang out, really wild social space and a new kind of landscape, a real permeability. It’s a place to hang out where things can happen organically, and spontaneously.”

More architectural plans are expected to be released as the project develops. Construction is set to begin in the spring of 2024 with a planned opening in 2026.