Construction now underway on new Vancouver Art Gallery

Construction work on the site of the future new Vancouver Art Gallery on March 13, 2024. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Construction is finally happening on the brand-new world-class home for the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) after nearly two decades of planning for a renewed facility.

Last week, crews with excavators began digging at the future VAG site of 181 West Georgia Street — located at the northeast corner of the intersection of West Georgia Street and Cambie Street, next to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

This site, known as Larwill Park, has been used as a surface public parking lot for decades, and in more recent years as a make-shift TransLink bus parking facility and temporary modular housing.

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The official groundbreaking ceremony involving Premier David Eby, Mayor Ken Sim, other officials and dignitaries, and donors was held in mid-September 2023, but the closure of the parking lot and actual construction work did not begin until early this month.

The current work involves site preparation — including the removal of the perimeter trees, and the demolition of the asphalt surface and Beatty Street retaining wall — which is expected to take several months to complete, at which point excavation for the foundations of the new building will begin.

In late-January 2024, after residents were relocated last year, work also began on dismantling the temporary modular housing structures at the northern end of the block, which is not part of the new VAG building footprint but will be used as a construction staging and storage area for the project. The actual VAG complex will use up the southern two-thirds of the three-acre block. Over the longer term, the municipal government envisions using this remaining northern one-third parcel on the City-owned block for a revenue-generating commercial development, such as a major office project.

vancouver art gallery construction march 13 2024

Construction work on the site of the future new Vancouver Art Gallery on March 13, 2024. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Jasmine Bradley, a spokesperson for the Vancouver Art Gallery, told Daily Hive Urbanized today the entire construction project is expected to take about 48 months, which would peg the new building’s completion and opening sometime in 2028. Ledcor is the project’s contractor.

The entire project carries a $400 million budget, including $350 million for the actual project of designing, planning, and constructing the new building and $50 million for an operational endowment upon opening.

Bradley says the VAG has now raised over $352 million — up from $345 million at the time of the September 2023 ceremonial groundbreaking. This means the VAG has fully covered its new building costs, with efforts now focused on reaching the endowment target.

Over the years, the VAG received $100 million from art philanthropist and developer Michael Audain, $100 million from the provincial government, $40 million from the Chan Family Foundation, and $30 million from the federal government. The City of Vancouver provided a 99-year nominal lease for the VAG’s use of the City-owned site.

In recognition of the Chan family’s early major donation towards the project, the new building will be formally named the “Vancouver Art Gallery at the Chan Centre for the Visual Arts.”

“As a not-for-profit organization, every donation counts and is essential to our current and future success. Without this support — there would be no Vancouver Art Gallery,” said Bradley.

vancouver art gallery new building 2024 rendering

2024 revised artistic rendering of the new Vancouver Art Gallery building. (Herzog & de Meuron/Perkins&Will)

2021 design of the new Vancouver Art Gallery. (Herzog & de Meuron/Perkins + Will)

2021 design of the new Vancouver Art Gallery. (Herzog & de Meuron/Perkins&Will)

The new VAG’s total building floor area will be about 300,000 sq ft, including 80,000 sq ft of dedicated exhibition and gallery space. In contrast, the existing VAG inside the heritage courthouse building is just under 170,000 sq ft, with about 40,000 sq ft of exhibition and gallery space.

The expanded exhibition space will enable the VAG to show more of its permanent collection, including works by Emily Carr and Indigenous artists. According to a 2015 internal audit by the City of Vancouver, the VAG at the time had about 12,000 works worth $260 million. However, due to the limited space, it is only able to exhibit a tiny fraction of its collection, with the vast majority kept in underground storage.

Other spatial features include a 265-seat auditorium theatre, classrooms, artist studios, af resource centre, library, archives, Indigenous community space, and the location of the Institute of Asian Art, along with a restaurant, teahouse, and bar. At ground level, the new museum will provide 63,000 sq ft of outdoor courtyard public space

Designed by world-renowned Swiss architectural firm Herzog de Meuron, the new building will be a 228-ft-tall stack of varying-sized box volumes containing 10 floors of high-ceiling interior space. It features a mass timber design with an Indigenous-inspired “basket weave” veil, along with a high-performance envelope towards achieving a Passive House green building standard.

2021 design of the new Vancouver Art Gallery. (Herzog & de Meuron/Perkins&Will)

The future of the VAG’s existing facility, after the attraction relocates to the new modern and expanded purpose-built home, has yet to be determined. The historic building was constructed in 1906 for its original purpose as a courthouse, and the VAG opened in the space in 1983 after performing a major conversion and renovation project.

This former courthouse building is owned by the provincial government, and the VAG’s uses of the heritage complex over the past decades is through a 100-year head lease with the City of Vancouver. The municipal government’s lease of the former courthouse building will not expire for another 56 years.

The site of the VAG’s new home, Larwill Park, was originally one of Vancouver’s first sports fields before it was converted into Greyhound’s bus depot from the Second World War onwards. In the early 1990s, Greyhound relocated its facilities to Pacific Central Station, and the site was turned into a public parking lot.

During the 2010 Winter Olympics, the parking lot was transformed into one of the main Live City celebration festival sites.

Vancouver Art Gallery at the former courthouse building. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

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