Quote:
Originally Posted by hipster duck
All Canadian cities - except unique situations like Ottawa - are behind where they should be on major cultural venues, although, to be fair, things like concert halls for symphony orchestras just don't figure as prominently as they used to. There hasn't been a lot of new opera houses or concert halls built internationally in recent years, either.
But Vancouver is noticeably behind other Canadian cities on cultural venues and it has gone on for a long time. Calgary and Edmonton built a raft of major arts projects in the last 15 years, Toronto updated pretty much every major cultural institution in the early 2000s, and built a lot of new ones like the Aga Khan museum and the Four Seasons Centre, and smaller cities have really stepped it up, notably Winnipeg, Halifax and Saskatoon.
Vancouver's problem is that it doesn't have major corporate donors or much of a culture of philanthropy.
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Hell, we can't even get a
long-planned new building for the province's preeminent art gallery built here for lack of funding. There's lots of money floating around in Vancouver, but it's all funnelled into real estate.
Vancouver has a vibrant grassroots cultural scene - there's no shortage of talented artists, muscians, performers; and eager audiences - but between the above-mentioned real estate issues, a lack of institutional support, and a sometimes outright antagonistic civic administration ("No-Fun City"), it ultimately "punches below its weight" on the cultural front for a city of its size and stature.
That said, count me as someone else who loves the Orpheum. While smaller and less impressive than somewhere like Toronto's Roy Thompson Hall, it's a heck of a lot more charming and atmospheric.
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