The new Vancouver Art Gallery is one step closer to reality with the announcement of a $40 million lead gift from the Chan family.
The donation brings the gallery’s capital campaign to $85 million in private sector funding toward the new purpose-built facility. In recognition of this extraordinary gift, the Vancouver Art Gallery’s new building will be named Chan Centre for the Visual Arts.
The Chan family’s contribution is the largest single private sector donation towards the gallery project to date, and it brings the combined public and private fundraising total to $135 million.
“With this unprecedented gift to the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Chans are demonstrating a profound investment in the future of this city and country, and one that will impact many generations to come,” said Kathleen S. Bartels, director of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Designed by world-renowned, Swiss-based architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron, the final design for the 300,000 square foot building was also unveiled. Local firm Perkins+Will Vancouver is executive architect on the project.
Herzog & de Meuron have designed the Vancouver Art Gallery’s new museum as a sculptural, symmetrical, upright building combining opaque and transparent surfaces, with larger volumes concentrated at the top and minimal mass at the bottom. By lifting the bulk of the structure high above the street, the design allows light and air to filter down to an active, open-air courtyard below.
“The new Vancouver Art Gallery is a vertical building, distinctly spectacular at first sight, with an arrangement that resonates with the place where it is built. It offers ample outdoor spaces that are sunny in summer and protected from rain in winter, to suit the climate and life in British Columbia. Visitors to the building will be able to perceive Vancouver’s urbanity and its amazing natural setting in many different ways”, described
Christine Binswanger, partner in charge, Herzog & de Meuron.
“Together with our team of BC experts and our client, we defined the building to a much higher degree: galleries, classrooms and reading rooms, the theatre, restaurants and shops, and all the public outdoor spaces are well enhanced. The new Vancouver Art Gallery is close to reality.”
The next step for the Vancouver Art Gallery Capital Campaign will be to continue
its work with senior levels of government and the private sector to secure the additional funding needed to begin construction.
