The current home of the Vancouver Art Gallery at Hornby and West Georgia streets in Vancouver.Simon Hayter
Vancouver City Council has unanimously agreed to set aside two acres of land at 688 Cambie Street for cultural use - including a new Vancouver Art Gallery. The VAG now has two years to prove its case to the city that the former Larwill Park site is the best site for a new gallery, that the VAG has a viable business plan, and that gallery officials can raise the funds to build the new facility - estimated at $250-million to $300-million.
"I'm delighted. I think it is a big step forward for the city and the Vancouver Art Gallery," said Michael Audain, chair of the gallery's relocation committee.
"We have a lot of work to do and this allows us to now move ahead and put together some conceptual design and start to structure fundraising, that sort of thing. So we will be in a position I hope before two years is out, to move ahead," he continued.
The report stipulates that the gallery will have to share the city block bordered by Cambie, Georgia, Beatty and Dunsmuir - currently a parking lot - with an office building. Approximately two acres of land is to be set aside for cultural use; the third acre for the office tower. City manager Penny Ballem indicated that negotiations are currently ongoing for that third acre.
But the Vancouver Concert Hall and Theatre Society wants a piece of the action too, and several of its members urged councillors on Tuesday to allow a concert hall and performance theatre complex to share the Larwill Park site as well.
"Here we are with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the city to define itself and its future vision of arts through this site's use," said Ron Stern, chair of the Society. "But it would be a wasted opportunity if all that was developed on that site was a facility for any single arts group and an office tower."
In order to accommodate the society's proposal - for a 1950 seat concert hall and a 450 seat performance theatre - Stern is in favour of closing off part of Cambie Street at the site, an option which is on the table.
But VAG director Kathleen Bartels said there's only so much the city can cram onto that site. And she says she can't envision the performance complex being proposed by the society fitting on that city block along with a gallery and office building.
"I think it would be very, very challenging for the art gallery. I think for all of us actually," she said after the meeting. "They have great ambitions; they should have great ambitions. We need a great concert hall. We support that initiative. But trying to make all those ambitions fit on one site I think would be a major compromise for the city of Vancouver and for both organizations."
In council chambers Tuesday morning and evening, supporter after supporter of the gallery relocation spoke to the lack of space at the gallery, the difficulty fitting school groups in, and the international reputation of many Vancouver artists - whose works can't be permanently displayed in the gallery because there's simply no room.
Even architect Bing Thom, who had publicly opposed the move, has softened somewhat on that.
"I'm over that," he told the Globe and Mail after the decision. "I think the idea to step back, take two years to look at it, that's the right move. The worst thing we could do is jump in too quickly. Because we haven't sorted out the cultural policy of the city over the next 15, 20 years. That's what's most important."
Bartels said consultations with the city will begin in earnest starting on Wednesday.
"What I'm really looking forward to during this next two years," said councillor Heather Deal, "is this process of an intense conversation in the city about culture and facilities and the future of the downtown and the importance of culture in that future."
Earlier in the day, speakers crowded council chambers to support the VAG's relocation.
Among them was artist and Emily Carr University professor Landon MacKenzie, who told council it would be a bad idea to keep the VAG in its current location and open a satellite gallery for contemporary art at the Larwill Park site, as has been suggested by a number of people, including landscape artist Cornelia Oberlander.
"I hope we won't go to two museums," said Mackenzie. "The great thing about the VAG and its brilliant curatorial mandate really and staff position is you go in to see Van Gogh and you discover some amazing contemporary art you would not have gone to see otherwise."
CUPE Local 15 President Paul Faoro, whose union represents about 70 workers at the Vancouver Art Gallery, said the union strongly supports the relocation, but only under certain conditions, including more financial transparency and a guarantee that the admission rates won't skyrocket.
Hank Bull, co-founder of Centre A, a contemporary Asian art gallery in the Downtown Eastside said he'd like to see the gallery share the space with a new lyric concert hall - and an Asian art museum, and also offered an opinion on the future of the VAG's current home.
"This is a little premature, but my own personal dream would be to have it as an aboriginal art centre," he said, "because I can't think of better poetic justice than to have the Indians take over the courthouse."