Contemporary Art Gallery interior
apologizing for culture Stephanie White
O ne of the pieces submitted to On Site recently was two arts buildings by Architectura, one of Vancouver’s largest firms. The gist of the proposed article was how cleverly the Contemporary Art Gallery and the Scotia Bank Dance Centre (both 2001) were built on their shoestring budgets. This entailed donated sites, heritage bonuses, FAR bonuses, free design fees resulting in ‘spare, serviceable buildings with some real architectural elegance’ (Noel Best of Architectura). The shoestring approach to putting projects in place is validated by the questionable claim that the dancers and artists wanted ‘straightforward, working facilities, not extravagant public architecture … [their] unstated message — don’t spend more than necessary, this is for our art form, not yours’. Now, this is a fairly depressing thing to consider. Where does this sort of attitude to architecture sit while Libeskind’s ROM addition is being debated, and where (in this issue) Margate, a small English seaside town, runs an international competition for an arts building and chooses a project that will undoubtedly bring attention and fame to both the town and the Turner collection. Of course Margate could have said ‘don’t do more than necessary — just give us a box for our art, that’s what is important, not the building’, but Margate, the ROM, the Berlin Museum, the Tate, the Guggenheim appear to understand that big architecture exposes more people to the arts than constrained borderline budget buildings.
Several opposing questions occur here. Must the arts succumb to global-scale attention-getting mechanisms in order to survive? Is a parochial pride in the struggle to do dance and art in renovated old buildings on seedy streets still valid in the twenty-first century? When funds are scraped together to get a firm of the size of Architectura involved must it be to renovate a redundant old bank on Granville into a dance centre? The Contemporary Art Gallery, after 30 years in an SRO on Hamilton building a significant reputation, is only able to put together a budget of two million, which includes its operating endowment. Design fees are waived by the architects, Noel Best, a member of the CAG board, and Martin Lewis of nlm Architect and a lecturer at UBC. The buildings here are fine — that is not at issue — lots of spare concrete, shadows and light. What is at issue here is the apologetic humility with which arts buildings are approached in this country. Although they are the centres of their own small communities, they are wedged into the renovated interstices of transitional zones in the city, still following that now forty year old cliché that artists are the front wedge of gentrification. What many Canadian cities don’t seem to exploit is the public relations potential of cultural production. Or, to take a sports example, because of the 1988 Olympics, Calgary has an excellent collection of facilities which attract great coaches who attract athletes and we get a gold medal speed skating team. Build the facilities and they return their investment with interest. But why does this thinking not apply to the arts? Montreal does rather better in this respect. It is not coincidental that Quebecois cultural production, supported and cherished, is a rich, exportable commodity. It is good that the CAG and CDC have new buildings, clean facilities, good lighting, but it seems that for both projects there has been an inordinately long struggle to get these buildings in place — twenty years for the CDC with four different sites and much controversy. Architectura gallantly credits the city for extending the bonus arrangements and the artistic communities for their flexibility, all parties being cooperative and inventive. But so they should be — after all what is there to obstruct in a dance centre and an art gallery?
Contemporary Art Gallery lobby
Stephanie White is editor of On Site.
ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY
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