Vancouver Art Gallery

This building here, the one the Vancouver Art Gallery occupies, was originally a provincial courthouse. It was designed by Francis Rattenbury and then repurposed for museum use in the early 1980s. It's considered the largest art museum in Western Canada based on its building size, which is about 15,300 square meters. In 1980, this building was even designated the Former Vancouver Law Courts National Historic Site of Canada.

The museum itself actually opened its doors in 1931 in a different location, at 1145 West Georgia Street. That first building, designed by Sharp and Johnston, had four galleries, a sculpture hall, a lecture hall, and a library. It cost around CA$40,000 to build. When it first opened, the works exhibited were mostly by British and other European artists.

In 1938, that first building was occupied by unemployed protesters during a sitdown strike before what was called Bloody Sunday, but the paintings weren't damaged. The museum then expanded in that original building in 1950, and they renovated it to an International Style, removing its Art Deco facade. These renovations also made space for the 157 works bequeathed by Emily Carr, and the building reopened in 1951. That renovation cost about CA$600,000, funded by the City of Vancouver and by funds raised by Lawren Harris.

The museum moved here, to this former provincial courthouse, in 1983. The Government of British Columbia still owns the building, but the museum has a 99-year sublease with the City of Vancouver, which in turn leases it from the provincial government. Before it opened as a museum, architect Arthur Erickson renovated it for CA$20 million as part of his larger Robson Square redevelopment. You can even get to the rest of Robson Square from here through an underground passage.

The gallery's permanent collection, which holds about 12,000 works by artists from Canada and around the world, serves as an art repository for the Lower Mainland. As of 2020, they have seasonal and traveling exhibitions. They also purchased 10 oil sketches in 2015 by J. E. H. MacDonald, but a nearly nine-year investigation revealed those were forgeries.

Planning for a new building started as early as 2004 because the gallery needed more space. They announced plans in November 2007 to seek approval for a new building at Larwill Park, and in 2008, the municipal government and the museum announced plans to relocate near the Plaza of Nations. However, in April 2013, the City Council approved the original Larwill Park site. The museum would lease that property from the City of Vancouver, similar to the current arrangement.

Herzog & de Meuron were chosen to design the new building in April 2014, making it their first project in Canada, with Perkins and Will as executive architects. The new building, named the Chan Centre for the Visual Arts after a major donor, was originally planned to be finished in 2020. However, the project stalled due to a funding dispute between the federal and provincial governments. As of March 2023, the estimated cost was $400 million, and the museum had raised over $340 million, including a $40 million donation from the Chan Foundation in 2019 and a $100 million donation from the Audain Foundation in 2021, which was the largest cash donation to a Canadian public art museum.

Groundbreaking for the new building happened on September 15, 2023, with construction starting in March 2024, but then