Architect Bing Thom recommended I read this piece from the Tyee on the prospects for the Larwell Park site (just east of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre) – likely the location for an ‘iconic’ architectural statement.
Bing’s warning:
Thom worries that civic culture is sliding into the control of a few select, giant institutions that grab a dominant share of publicity and public money. He argues that as Vancouver grows, it is in danger of mimicking other North American metropolises in adopting the same dominant assumptions of what constitutes important culture: opera, symphony, art gallery.
But Vancouver culture is unique, argues Thom. For example, it’s more informed by First Nations and Eastern Asian values than other metropolises, so we shouldn’t necessarily adopt an a eye-stopping, starchitect-designed grand projet. The federal government maxes out its grants to cultural facilities at $30-million per institution; Thom wants the pie to be carved up in as many pieces as possible.
I agree with Joost Bakker that a stand alone cultural building would end up making the area more of a wasteland than it already is. There are too many plazas and blank walls over there already. It really needs a building that adds to or creates a fabric to the area – I’d rather see a building that comes to the sidewalk on all sides (maybe with an internal courtyard/scupture garden).
Mind you, the CBC’s redevelopment has it coming to the sidewalk and it appears that Concord Pacific will be building on the plaza at Georgia and Beatty (the one with the old viaduct railings).
Given the area and the lack of foot traffic (even if the VAG moved in) and the inevitable competition from being side-by-side with the VAG, I would question whether it would be a good idea for the National Aboriginal Art Gallery and the Asia-Pacific Museum of Trade and Culture to move into that area at all.
Why don’t the National Aboriginal Art Gallery and the Asia-Pacific Museum of Trade and Culture jockey for/share the more prominent existing VAG space in the old courthouse at Robson Square?
nb: Larwill Park, not Larwell Park