B.P.O. Elks Circus, at the Cambie Street Grounds (Larwill Park) – 1 May 1926.
CVA Reference – 99-1549

Among the many Council items on the docket tomorrow is a staff report on the possible relocation of the Vancouver Art Gallery. The report addresses the 688 Cambie Street location that the VAG currently has their eyes on (the giant parking bordered by Georgia, Dunsmuir, Cambie and Beatty). And while it doesn’t give a ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ either way, it does give the VAG two years to come up with a funding plan for the site, a comprehensive review of the various options for relocation and a number of other items.

And, as an added bonus – which makes us quite happy – the report also directs staff to investigate the possibility of locating a public plaza “fronting Georgia Street” as part of this process. Given that the site in question used to be one of Vancouver’s premier gathering places, this could mean the creation of a brand new public space. May we be first to suggest the name “Larwill Square“?

VPSN Chair Erin O’Melinn wrote a short letter noting our support for the report – and also took the opportunity to suggest to City Council that additional planning work also needs to be done for the existing VAG site at Robson Square. Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

Although our organization does not have a formal position on the Art Gallery move, we nevertheless recognize the need to secure the site at 688 Cambie Street so that the appropriate research and planning work can take place. 

Furthermore, we are particularly supportive of Recommendation E – pertaining to the investigation of options for the development of a public plaza fronting Georgia Street. Regardless of whether the VAG moves into the site, we feel that the 688 Cambie Street location is ideally suited to development as a public space – and that this would increase the cultural, social, and physical connectivity in that neighbourhood. Not only is this the former site of Larwill Park – one of the city’s chief gathering spaces in the early-to-mid 20^th century – but the location is particularly well suited because of its proximity to the Georgia Steps, key cultural facilities, transit and cycling infrastructure.

Our hope is that the public realm aspect of the discussion can be kept in sharp focus. There is great potential for the area to become more of a cultural and economic centre, and a more welcoming place for people to connect to amenities such as the library, Queen Elizabeth Theatre, the Playhouse, CBC, and the many cultural and retail facilities in the Downtown and Downtown Eastside. To that end, we would request that the discussion around a plaza at this location also be referenced in the Downtown Public Space Plan that you requested staff to produce on December 2, 2010.

Finally, we also wish to note that any relocation of the VAG also has the potential to create a significant impact on the Court House site and Robson Square. These are also vitally important public spaces in Vancouver. We would request that Council also direct staff, in consultation with the public and key stakeholders, to explore future options for this site. In this regard, if the VAG does move, there will be a transition strategy in place to ensure that these sites retain – or improve – their present day role in the public life of the city.

A report on the subject will be in front of Council next week and can be viewed here.

As part of the proposal, there’s also discussion around the potential to create new public space(s) around the gallery, including a public plaza and the possible closure of Cambie Street between Georgia and Dunsmuir. Exciting stuff that, in our mind, builds upon the work that’s been done on the expansion of Robson Square.

We’ll be reviewing the report and making further comment shortly. In the meanwhile, here’s the City’s press release:

Report proposing downtown cultural hub, possible Vancouver Art Gallery relocation, public plaza coming to council

A staff report coming to Vancouver city council next week proposes setting aside two acres of 688 Cambie Street (the former Greyhound Bus depot and Olympic Downtown Live Site) for the development of a cultural hub and public plaza, which could include the relocation and expansion of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

“The exciting thing about this proposal is that it’s not just about the potential for a new cultural space, but also about the design and use of public space downtown,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson. “This site was the home for the Olympic Downtown Live Site and Four Host First Nations, and we want to create a lasting cultural and economic legacy from the success we saw during the Games.

“We have an opportunity to create a hub of cultural and economic activity in a unique and evolving part of downtown, while also developing a new space for the public to enjoy. That could include a new public plaza and even a possible closure of part of Cambie Street, which would create a vibrant public space as an Olympic legacy.

“These ideas will all be discussed as part of the consultations we’ll be kicking off, and I look forward to hearing from the public about them.”

The report, which will go to council Thursday January 20, recommends that the City reserve two acres of 688 Cambie for up to two years for cultural use. During this time, city staff would work with the Vancouver Art Gallery to develop a strategy that meets the future needs of both the Gallery and the City. The City would commit two acres of the lot at 688 Cambie, which is currently a surface parking lot, for a new Gallery if the VAG can develop a rigorous business plan, demonstrate broad support from the cultural community and the public, and provide evidence of its ability to successfully raise the required capital and operating costs.

The report to council proposes examining the potential for a public plaza fronting on Georgia Street, which would create continuity between the Queen Elizabeth Theatre Plaza and 688 Cambie. There will also be discussions with other cultural groups like the Vancouver Concert Hall and Theatre Society, who have expressed interest in using the site for a concert hall and theatre.

The City will also undertake an extensive community consultation and public input process from the cultural community and general public on the Gallery and the use of the site at 688 Cambie.
“This proposal is a very positive step forward,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson. “The VAG is one of the most important cultural institutions in our city and it has made a compelling case for expansion and relocation. I want to recognize the patience and dedication the VAG has shown over these past few years – it has been a long process to arrive at this juncture but we now have a framework to move forward.

“This council has been a strong supporter of arts and culture – we did not make a single budget cut to the arts last year. We have a world-class arts and culture scene in Vancouver and we’re going to do everything we can to take it to the next level.”

The council report can be viewed here.

I’ll be participating in what promises to be a very interesting panel discussion on the future of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Not only is the subject itself a fascinating one, but I have the good fortune of appearing on the same bill as

• Joost Bakker, Architect, FRAIC, MAIBC, AIA
• Heather Deal, Councillor City of Vancouver
• Michael Audain VAG, Representative Board of Trustees
• Ian Wallace, Artist
• Gordon Price, SFU City Program

Panelists will be looking at some key questions: Should the Gallery move? What are the financial challenges? What’s the nature of a cultural precinct? What’s the public process? All good things to think about given the way the VAG has ramped up the discussion recently, pushing things along with full page ads in the major dailies and weeklies.

For my contribution I plan to look at the importance of the existing and proposed VAG sites as public spaces, and how these spaces may (or may not) intersect with the notion of a cultural precinct. I’ll probably riff a little off of the ideas I was working on in my post from a couple of months back – exploring the history of the two sites and sketching a few ideas on the importance of continued public access to the Rattenbury/Court House building that the Gallery now occupies.

The event takes place this Thursday, May 20, at 7:00pm at Robson Square Theatre and will be moderated by Gordon Price, Director of SFU’s City Program. It’s co-sponsored by the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning, the SFU City Program and Architecture Canada (RAIC Metro Vancouver).

Hope you can make it!

Art Gallery - 1146 West Georgia Street

Construction of the “new” art gallery, 1145 (not 1146) West Georgia, 1931
Vancouver Archives Item Bu P401.1

Like a fine piece of performance art, the recent announcement about the relocation of the Vancouver Art Gallery has it all: contentious elements, colourful ideas and lots of audience participation (or blog posts, call them what you will…). It started at the beginning of the month, with what seemed to be a formal (and perhaps presumptive) media release by the VAG that it had selected a site on which to develop a new Gallery structure. 

(You can read the March 4 Vancouver Sun story by Kevin Griffin here, as well as Charlie Smith’s lament about the “news release — oops, article” here. (Smith was commenting on the idea that that there was something too orchestrated about the announcement).

The announcement – whether strategically motivated or not – is the latest in a saga of locational decisions and expansionist plans that go back a few years now.

The recent history began with the appointment of Kathleen Bartels to the position of Gallery head in 2001. Bartels has always been keen on the idea of expanding the gallery. With much of the VAG’s collection (apparently over 96%!) out of sight and in storage, Bartels has been eager to find a way to develop the gallery and allow it to showcase more of its work. 

After undertaking a search for possible sites that lasted over three years, the Gallery landed on the same Larwill Park location presently under consideration. (Most people, incidentally, know this site as the large, City-owned parking lot bounded by Georgia, Dunsmir, Cambie and Beatty). Before acquiring its present state of aesthetic refinement, the area was actually a park for the first half of the 20th century, then leased out and used as a bus depot for a few decades.

At any rate, the suggestion at the time was that the VAG, by moving to the Larwill Park site, would help to create a Cultural Precinct in the area — further energizing a set of city blocks with its proximity to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, the central library and the CBC building.

Fast forward to 2005 and the province — seemingly out of the blue — offered to kick in $50 million to assist the VAG to move to an entirely different space: that being the area occupied by the former Plaza of Nations on the north side of False Creek. 

This idea to take the VAG out of the downtown core puzzled many, but since it had an incentive with some heft to it (remember, this was back when the Province had money) thing seemed to shift accordingly. That is, until recently…when the due diligence research on the site determined that the overall cost of locating a collection so close to the water table wasn’t all that much of a bargain.

And so the discussion has turned back to the Larwill Park site, and the debate over whether this is a Good Thing or a Very Bad Idea (a debate which ignited after the initial VAG selection report) has begun anew.

The critics got their first chance to rebut the idea a couple of days after the initial annoucement — in an article in the Globe and Mail. They now appear to be organizing against the VAG’s plans. 

Leading the charge (at least in this piece) is Bing Thom, renowned architect who points to the fact that:

“The Olympics have proven that the gallery has the best site in Canada. It’s the perfect location… We don’t want to hollow out the centre of city. Vancouver is strong at the edges, near the water, but we desperately need something at the centre. The art gallery is the visible symbol of our culture and it should be at the heart.”

Thom argues against the move, and against the development of a new structure for the site, suggesting that there isn’t the need “to do a Bilbao.” (By which he means a Bilbao-style, “starchitect” designed structure… Bilbao, Spain being the site of Frank Gehry’s iconic gallery — and the most frequently sited example of gallery monumentalism). 

Thom, and others on the “no move” side argue that the Gallery already has the pride of place in City locations, and should make better use of the site it has. (This is a line that also gets nicely articulated in a Globe & Mail piece by Lisa Rochon from last month.) 

(In fact, in the recent past Thom has also argued for the possibility of a more decentralized approach to Gallery expansion – moving away from one big development, or one central cultural precinct, and towards the creation of many smaller precincts). 

My take is a bit less emphatic, perhaps more ambivalent. While having the Art Gallery in its present location is good, I don’t think it is essential. The Gallery has moved before (as recently as the early 1970s) and could potentially do so again, provided a suitable location were found (“suitable” being reasonably accessible to the public, and in the city centre). 

Of course the cost of such a relocation (cost being that that great big, ballooning elephant of an issue), would need to be looked at alongside other priorities, social and cultural. Given that we have a very recent, gold medal example of spiraling budgets and crunching deficits, it would be smart to take a very deep breath and think about things before getting to enthusiastic. Doubtless, there’s a study somewhere that talks about the role of a newer, bigger Gallery as an economic generator for the City. On the other hand, while staying put is less glamourous, it also doesn’t cost us money (currently estimated at between $300-$400 million) that we don’t actually have.

On this note, it would be good to have a more public discussion about the VAG’s need for space, since that seems to be the prime reason for moving (or at least the prime reason that is being publicly advanced). 

At first blush it is easy to feel sympathetic to the argument that more space is needed to display the Gallery’s collection. These holdings are part of the creative commonwealth of the city, and keeping such a large percentage of art shuttered away doesn’t do us any good. Are there ways to use the current space more effectively? What’s the ratio between the amount of a Gallery collection on display versus that which is in storage? The VAG is claiming they only showcase about 3% of their work, and while this seems low, how does this compare to other prominent galleries in Canada and elsewhere? 

What, as well, about about some of the other expansion possibilities that would see the VAG remain in its current location while expanding in one or more directions – either over Robson, further north, or eastward into territory currently occupied by Sears. As an article in today’s Vancouver Sun notes, these were, at one point, quite viable possibilities. Are they worth looking at again? (Interestingly, the same on-site expansion ideas discussed by architect Michael Maltzan in the article were picked up, albeit in different form, by entrants to the VPSN’s Where’s the Square? design competition a year ago).

Setting aside the questions of cost and space, what I find important from a city-building/quality of life perspective is that the actual site of the Gallery (the striking, neoclassical structure designed by Frances Rattenbury, and the Erickson and Oberlander designed additions to the Gallery site) remain open for public use. The whole Robson Square complex is probably the best natural gathering place in the city. Irrespective of the specific occupants, having a use (or set of uses) that support public access to the site is of paramount importance. 

And if the VAG does move, that doesn’t automatically mean that the current site need be any less a centre or hub. In fact, we could look at this as an opportunity to make it even more of a showpiece and public space than it is now. 

A few possible alternatives have also been suggested in the recent discussion. One that appeals to me is the idea of moving the Vancouver Museum here, from its present, out-of-the-way location in Vanier Park. The museum has a smaller collection, puts on amazingly relevant events, is indubitably “Vancouver”… and could gain from such a central location. This, in turn, would have a tangential benefit of opening up the Museum’s current “Salish Hat” building for other uses – a permanent staging ground for the many excellent festivities that take place in Vanier Park such as the Children’s Fest, the Salmon Fest and Shakespeare in the Park. Or new events, for that matter. 

As for the site of the proposed relocation, I’ve always been taken with the story of Larwill Park and its role in the development of Vancouver (the park will be the subject of its own post later this week). More recently, when the VPSN held its aforementioned competition we were intrigued by the fact that, in addition to the popular Robson site, several designers chose to submit plans for a grand gathering place on the Larwill grounds. In other words, Larwill Park, like the VAG site, resonates. It’s got a lot of possibility attached to it, and is an important location in the city. Whatever it gets used for — museum, tower, perhaps even a new park — should be thought about very carefully. 

In the meantime, the project — what ever “the” project is, will make for some striking drama as it unfolds. There will be artful appeals on all sides, statuesque posturing and and the sort of architecturally infused, high priced spectacle that only comes along every few decades. 

Kind of like one of those traveling exhibits, except that all the pieces have been assembled in our own back yard!

A month to go before the big party rolls into town. With the years of lead-up planning, the period of the Olympic and Paralympic games will be short in comparison – over before we knew it. Then what?

Although the Vancouver component of the Games (hockey, curling, etc.) will take place indoors, the impact of the Olympics will saturate all corners of the city, and our public spaces – streets, sidewalks and gathering places – will be particularly affected. When talking about Olympic legacies, the question of public space becomes an important one. What will March 2010 hold in store, once the last athletes and IOC officials have left town?

Here are three ideas and opportunities that bear thinking about:

Pedestrian Streets – The Transportation Plan for the Games includes the temporary creation of several pedestrian (car-free) areas in the Downtown core – including parts of Robson Street and Mainland. They will be heavily used during the games, showcasing some real possibilities for future transportation planning in the City’s Engineering Department. Such pedestrian corridors can be a boon for our long-term sustainability, economic development and public health, and we should be working hard, as residents, to advocate for pedestrian corridors in our post-Olympic city.

Safety – It was a bit dodgy to say the least. Early in 2010, Council passed a motion requesting funds from the Province for “temporary” surveillance cameras to monitor public places during the games. Once the funding was in place, the Province made a little aside that went something like this: “What? Temporary? Why would we fund temporary cameras?” Bad move. The cameras – proven to be largely ineffectual at reducing crime — need to go after the Games are over. Vancouver does not need increased long-term police monitoring of residents as part of any ‘gift’ from Victoria.

Gathering Places – Upgrades have been made to several community centre and park facilities, but what about the opportunities for imagining entirely new gathering places? One site that should be front and centre is the large, City-owned parking lot at Georgia and Beatty. This parking lot used to be one of the grand gathering places in the city and went by the name Larwill Park (it got shut down as such in the 1950s). Now, temporarily re-purposed as an Olympic “Live Site”, the parking lot should be kept as a gathering place and given its former name back. A renewed Larwill Park would help to build a strong linkage between False Creek and the Downtown core, providing necessary open space (and perhaps our long-missed public square) in a park-deprived area of the city.

These are just three of the many areas for consideration. Each of these also speaks to a more general consideration of the social and political use of public space in the city – how it’s planned, designed, and regulated, who accesses and uses it, and so on. The Olympics – which come with a full contingent of pros and cons – provides an important opportunity to look at Vancouver’s public spaces and the role that they play in our overall quality of life.