Vancouver Art Gallery Selects New Architects

When we reported on the fate of the Herzog & de Meuron-designed museum last December, a 50% increase in costs—from $400 to $600 million CAD—was the reason given for halting construction just six months after it began and then abandoning the project a few months later. Michael Audain, a board member who had donated more than $100 million toward the building, said “the way it had been engineered and structured, it was going to be very expensive.” He also called for the architect(s) replacing Herzog & de Meuron to be Canadian, preferably from British Columbia.With Monday's announcement, Audain's call is coming to fruition. KPMB Architects, founded by Bruce Kuwabara and others in 1987, is a large practice based in Toronto, and Formline Architecture + Urbanism, founded in 2005 by Alfred Waugh, is based in Vancouver. The team was selected from proposals submitted by fourteen “leading” Canadian firms following an in-depth review and interview process. 

The announcement further states that a goal of the new building is “to create a destination for art and culture that reflects the diversity of its audiences,” with the forthcoming conceptual design process “shaped by listening, dialogue and the perspectives of the communities the Gallery serves.” Aligned with the institution's focus on audience and community, Waugh is one of the few registered First Nations Architects in Canada, and his presence on the team means Vancouver Art Gallery foresees their new home as “a local cultural beacon and an international architectural landmark, blending Indigenous and global knowledge to reflect Vancouver’s vibrant, inclusive spirit.”

For their part, Basel's Herzog & de Meuron—who worked with the Vancouver office of Perkins & Will as executive architect and went through numerous iterations on the design of the building's facade from 2015 onwards—developed, “in close collaboration with a group of Coast Salish artists,” a copper facade “made up of horizontal bands and profiled vertical elements arranged in a woven metal assembly that echoes the local weaving traditions of the Coast Salish people.” Last year's scrapping of their plan, though, had more to do with the cost of the numerous cantilevers rather than the regionally inflected skin wrapping the building. Not surprisingly, the announcement from the Vancouver Art Gallery does not mention their previous attempt at building their new home.

Look for the release of a conceptual design for Formline Architecture + Urbanism and KPMB Architects next year.