Posted Sep 14, 2024, 12:01 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 23,397
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I'll just place this here for those who don't follow individual city forums:
Vancouver Art Gallery reassesses its grand ambitions for new building
Marsha Lederman
Published September 7, 2024
Updated September 9, 2024
For Subscribers
Developer and philanthropist Michael Audain was on vacation in Bangkok when he saw the news: The Vancouver Art Gallery was pausing construction on its new building. He was surprised and upset, but not shocked. Mr. Audain, who has pledged $100-million to the project, said he had known for some time that the gallery’s projected costs had ballooned.
Last year, at a celebratory ground-awakening ceremony, the figure to realize a two-decade-long dream of a signature new home for some of British Columbia’s most important cultural treasures – to replace the current, inadequate building – was pegged at $400-million. That figure is now $600-million and the art gallery says it is working on making the building, as its board chair describes, “a little less architecturally excessive.”
“I’m very disappointed that the current project is not proceeding,” said Mr. Audain, an avid art collector and cultural benefactor whose pledge came with conditions.
The gallery, to date, has raised more than $355-million, too far from the current projected cost to begin the big-ticket work of digging the deep hole, ordering materials, renting equipment – and borrowing the money to do so. This was supposed to begin next month. After acknowledging the soaring costs and pause in construction to The Globe and Mail last week, the gallery put out a hasty statement the following day, announcing the increased costs and the resulting pause....
....Gallery officials are both working to cut costs and to raise more money, with an emphasis on the former. The B.C. government, which has already given $100-million, has said it has not yet considered further provincial funding. Mr. Audain said he’s disappointed the federal government has not contributed more. (The federal contribution was just under $30-million in 2022, most of it tied to the project’s sustainability goals.)
There has been no discussion by VAG officials about abandoning the site, given to the gallery in a long-term lease by the city more than 10 years ago. The Herzog and de Meuron design is still in play. Mr. Kiendl says they are working with the team “to explore new design possibilities and to retain as much of the work and knowledge we have acquired together over the past couple of years of design development.”....
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cana...-new-building/
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