New Vancouver Art Gallery | Proposed

[retro_orange]

It doesn't sound like he did much constructive... 'I sent an email that was supposed to save my business but I couldn't be bothered to follow up with a phone call or go directly to the office of whoever manages these things for a whole 6 months.' It doesn't sound like he had his heart in it anymore.

[trofirhen]

Without trying to offend the moderators or any other readers, I feel compelled to share my feelings honestly. It's about the new VAG. Even with that new covering, it sickens me.
........ the misplaced wooden structure, the shape, everything: awkward, pretentious by prenting to be unpretentious, assymetrical, visually jarring, (even with the redeeming 'green' element)... the list goes on.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by whatnext

That's a reality in a volume cooking establishment. Do you think Earl's made that jambalaya just for you?

Even if it was microwaved the dishes still didn't have that processed taste and texture so common to institutional dining. Rodents are a fact of life in vancouver, especially with the mandated composting.

Gordon Ramsay would disapprove. Shame.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by whatnext

I believe the physical space will stay largely as is, only the operator will change. It's just odd the VAG would pick this fight when they have so much on their plate already.

We can only hope so!

[whatnext]

On the face of it, this wouldn't seem to bode well for the VAG expansion:

Vancouver Art Gallery suddenly parts ways with executive director Kathleen Bartels
Bartels had been leading a fund raising campaign for a new gallery

The Vancouver Art Gallery is about to embark on a new era, given the sudden and unexpected departure of Kathleen Bartels, the gallery’s executive director for the past 18 years.

The gallery said in a statement May 28 that associate director Daina Augaitis will be the gallery’s interim director, and that an executive search for a new permanent executive director will begin immediately.

Bartels, the gallery said, “is leaving to pursue other professional and personal interests.”...

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=8557911

[trofirhen]

I wonder if this means a sleeker building design. I doubt it, but one can always hope that a change in administration will manifest itself elsewhere, somehow.

[Millennium2002]

So I noticed not that long ago that TransLink and West Vancouver Transit are using Larwill park as a temporary layover point while the construction around the old Post Office continues.

Which made me think once again... Should there be a bus layover or terminal incorporated into the underbelly of the complex?

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Millennium2002

So I noticed not that long ago that TransLink and West Vancouver Transit are using Larwill park as a temporary layover point while the construction around the old Post Office continues.

Which made me think once again... Should there be a bus layover or terminal incorporated into the underbelly of the complex?

If it's nicely designed and incorporate well with a new design of the Art Gallery, I don't see why not. In fact it would be really nice as the bottom of the gallery can also serve as a terminal for the West Vancouver-bound Blue buses. Lots of tourists and visitors take these buses to go take ferries going to the islands. Better still, an undergound passageway with retail links the Stadium station to the new bus terminal/art gallery. That would be ideal.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Millennium2002

So I noticed not that long ago that TransLink and West Vancouver Transit are using Larwill park as a temporary layover point while the construction around the old Post Office continues.

Which made me think once again... Should there be a bus layover or terminal incorporated into the underbelly of the complex?

A surface-grade loop at most, if they can't go back to Hamilton. Even if they had the money, the VAG probably isn't going to dig out an extra depot just for a layover.

[officedweller]

I would also expect that there would be extensive underground art storage vaults under the building (as well as parking).

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by officedweller

I would also expect that there would be extensive underground art storage vaults under the building (as well as parking).

Yes, it is not like everything in their collection is going to be on display!

Meanwhile the Globe & Mail, as usual, has some in-depth analysis of Bartel's departure:

...Ms. Bartels has attracted criticism in recent months, particularly during a strike by VAG workers over the winter, which started just days after the Chans’ donation was announced. Some striking workers and VAG supporters questioned Ms. Bartels’ actions and were critical of her salary. There were calls for her resignation.

“How can management so badly sour the news of a fantastic 40 million dollar donation with a strike by staff?” VAG donors Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft wrote in a strongly worded letter to Ms. Bartels at the time, which has been posted to social media. “Very bad strategy and terrible optics.”

The letter called the strike “a serious strategic blunder” and called on the board to step in and resolve the situation if the administration was not able to.

“Morale is low due to less-than-respectful treatment by management,” B.C. artist Rodney Graham wrote to Ms. Bartels and Mr. Calabrigo in a letter posted to Instagram by striking workers. “It is unseemly for an institution as important as the Vancouver Art Gallery to treat their employees in the manner in which they have, and it is time for management to act responsibly and respect the VAG staff’s modest demands.”..

....A number of gallery employees have departed recently, including the director of marketing and communications about a month ago. Also this spring, the operator of the gallery’s café vacated the space, saying that problems with management contributed to his decision to close the restaurant.

As for the new building, the VAG has already recorded more than $20-million in disbursements for the project, and ground has not yet been broken. When asked about this in January, Ms. Bartels explained that those costs date back to 2004 and include feasibility studies, a capital campaign, public relations and the architect-selection process.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/art...r-kathleen-bartels-leaves-amid-campaign/

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by whatnext

[...]
As for the new building, the VAG has already recorded more than $20-million in disbursements for the project, and ground has not yet been broken. When asked about this in January, Ms. Bartels explained that those costs date back to 2004 and include feasibility studies, a capital campaign, public relations and the architect-selection process.[/I]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/art...r-kathleen-bartels-leaves-amid-campaign/

How?! They held a design competition, if I recall correctly, for which firms spec their work. I could see $2M for the years of feasibility studies and, I expect, a healthy retainer to Herzog & de Meuron at selection, but ten times that? I suspect that the capital campaign and PR were just bottomless pits of cronyism for Bartell's circle. Unreal. The Board must audit to preserve the VAG's credibility and have any chance at significant future philanthropy.

[Vin]

And despite the 20mil already spent, they still came up with an atrocious design.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

$20 million spent??? really??? well, someone was giving contracts to friends/relatives...

[whatnext]

A scathing review of the VAG proposal by Patrick Condon. Cool proposal for the original QE Theatre!

Is This Really Us?
Vancouver falls prey to the architecture of globalism. Do we deserve better?

I have a design for an art gallery at Larwill Park,” the late architect Bing Thom told Vancouver Sun journalist John Mackie in 2014.

“Gordon Campbell phoned me up and said ‘Paul Martin just gave me $500 million, design something spectacular at Larwill Park,’” Thom told the journalist.

Thom did design “something spectacular,” with a new art gallery floating over a public plaza, a theatre and other civic uses, beside the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

And if our cultural leaders had more confidence in our own people and less need to elbow their way onto the global stage with some shiny object or the “next big thing,” we would be enjoying it today.

Instead, the Vancouver Art Gallery embarked on a disaster in the making, picking Swiss “starchitecture” firm Herzog & De Meuron. Its design for the new gallery, shown at the top of this story, expresses a facile interpretation of West Coast materials and forms fashioned into something that looks like the spawn of a ziggurat and a giant Transformer — a design that, for better or worse, increasingly seems fated to take its place in the catalogue of unbuilt Vancouver architecture.

If built, the gallery proposal will ultimately be forgettable, and feel private, lacking a substantive contribution to civic stature and public life.

What went wrong with this missed opportunity? The departure of Vancouver Art Gallery director Kathleen Bartels, who championed the project, provides a chance to reflect on what we are collectively doing wrong when it comes to key decisions about the future of this city.

Michael Heeney, who worked with Bing Thom for decades, told Mackie that Bartels was “very keen on having a stand-alone, iconic [building].”

The Bing Thom proposal “was more part of an ensemble” on the Larwill Park site across Cambie Street from the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Heeney said. “Kathleen didn’t want to play ball. The next thing we knew, she was asking the city for the site.”...

...Perhaps the newest entrant into the global city competition, Dubai, can give us a clue. The image below of Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai has been described by Danish urbanist Jan Gehl as a row of over-sized “perfume bottles on a ladies vanity.”

Gehl also describes the popular process of “starchitects” being flown in to drop their buildings onto a city, with no regard for their impact on public life, as “Bird — Architecture.”....

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2019/06/18/Does-Vancouver-Deserve-Better-Prey-Architecture-Globalism/

[Migrant_Coconut]

Agree or disagree with the Herzog design, both Patrick Condon and the Tyee should be taken with multiple doses of salt, if not the whole shaker.

I for one am glad that the VAG did NOT go with Bing Thom's pitch:


(Vancouver Sun)

[csbvan]

I am one of the few who doesn't hate the proposed gallery, but I've got to say, I would prefer the Thom design and the whole concept for programming.

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I for one am glad that the VAG did NOT go with Bing Thom's pitch:


(Vancouver Sun)

uhh, no...

I don't understand - is there exhibition space in the roof or is it just to protect people from weather? And to combine a national gallery of native art a concert hall, the VAG? unless there are other building above/below ground it would not really be an expansion for the art gallery.

I never really understood the coal harbour concert hall - is there really a need for the venue? the vancouver playhouse is underutilized and the chan centre is great for things that might need a concert hall. It'd be nice to have, but even ignoring capital costs, I am not sure where programming money would come from

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Agree or disagree with the Herzog design, both Patrick Condon and the Tyee should be taken with multiple doses of salt, if not the whole shaker.

I for one am glad that the VAG did NOT go with Bing Thom's pitch:


(Vancouver Sun)

It's worth pulling the article out of your quote, as it has the original Sun piece. The vast floating roof was to give the site weather protection in the winter, something srely lacking in Vancouver's public spaces. I'd like to know what happened to the concert hall money referred to?

...“We came up with this thing that was sometimes referred to as a cultural Granville Island,” said Heeney.

“At that time Emily Carr hadn’t moved, they were looking for extra space so they were going to move their industrial design department there. We had Centre A (art gallery) teaming up with the Asia-Pacific Foundation for kind of an Asian art complex.

“This was before the Bill Reid Museum got settled in the craft museum, and they were proposing a National Aboriginal Art Gallery. So that was in there. There was a disparate group of buildings.”

According to the pamphlet the National Gallery of Aboriginal Art would have been 100,000 sq. ft., the Asia-Pacific component was 50,000 sq. ft., and there were two concert halls, one with 1,800 seats, the other 450.

To deal with the Vancouver weather, Thom placed a giant roof over top of the project.

“The spans were such that the roof structure was quite deep,” said Heeney.

“In fact, it was just the right size to fit the Vancouver Art Gallery in it. So we thought the Vancouver Art Gallery could be in this big roof structure over all these other uses.”

The gallery extended across Cambie to the plaza in front of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

“We had these wonderful big hollow shaft columns that brought people up into the space,” said Heeney, who spent several years on the VAG’s board. “It was very neat, it was going to be all top-lit and controlled.”

“It was going to be a huge new cultural hub,” said Wooten.

But Bartels didn’t want to be part of it.

“She was very keen on having a stand-alone, iconic (building), and this was more part of an ensemble,” said Heeney...

...Ironically, if the feds did give $500 million to the project, that’s $500 million more than they’ve given to date to the proposed Herzog & De Meuron gallery.

“This was in the days of Paul Martin, and they were getting along terribly well with the province,” said Heeney. “It was all instigated with Gordon Campbell. Then of course Martin lost the election (in 2006), and it all went sideways.”

Another proposal that went sideways was at the downtown post office, where a developer offered space to the VAG in a redevelopment but was turned down...

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news...cluded-a-suspended-vancouver-art-gallery

[Migrant_Coconut]

The roof complex covers drivers and buildings almost more so than pedestrians (which can be done much better for less money). It's an interesting pitch, but in the "hey, look at me" way, not as something functional or aesthetically pleasing.

There's various proposals for concert halls all the time. For example, that one a few years ago for the old courthouse once the VAG leaves.


(The Straight).