Here’s The Design For The New Art Gallery Of Nova Scotia
HALIFAX — A winner has been selected in the contest to choose the design for the new Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
The winning proposal was designed by KPMB Architects, with help from a team of locals including Halifax’s Omar Gandhi Architect, Mi’kmaq artist Jordan Bennett, and Mi’kmaq elder Lorraine Whitman.
The team’s concept is a striking, terracotta building deeply inspired by Mi’kmaw art and spiritual traditions.
The main entrance is designed to evoke the peaked hats traditionally worn by Mi’kmaw matriarchs. Flowing from the main structure is a curving architectural feature resembling an eel that eventually becomes a ramp leading to a new saltwater marsh near the front of the building.
Bruce Kuwabara, of KPMB Architects, says the building will be a “radical new beginning for the AGNS, the waterfront, for all people in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the world of art.”
“The site of the new AGNS is designed to support local culture and economy by weaving together landscape and architecture to truly make a vital arts district for Halifax and all of her people,” Gandhi adds.
Suzanne Lohnes-Croft, Nova Scotia’s Minister of Communities, Culture, and Heritage, said the winning team’s design was chosen because of its “moving, bold, and thought-provoking sensitivity to people and public space, and it’s extraordinary ambition which led to their unanimous recommendation.”
The gallery will be built on the “Salter Block” off Lower Water Street and will anchor a larger arts district on the Halifax Waterfront.
Develop Nova Scotia CEO Jennifer Angel spoke at today’s announcement about the power of “social infrastructure” like libraries, parks, and galleries to “inspire and validate” all members of a community by bringing people together.
“We believe this reimagined arts district, anchored by the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, can be a place for everyone, and we know that to build a place for everyone we need to build it with everyone, which is easy to say and hard to do,” Angel said.
“In a time of so much loss and struggle and division, we see an opportunity for large-scale intervention, and the promise of social infrastructure as a stimulus for that change.”
Whitman, the Mi’kmaw elder who helped the team design the concept, said there’s still lots of work to do to get to a final product.
“This is just the beginning of a new beginning. A circle, so to speak, with no beginning and no end, just a world of opportunities,” she said. “This building is being built from the ground up. This is for all Nova Scotians, of every race, colour, religion, faith, heritage, gender diverse, disabilities, young and old.”
Now that a winning design concept has been selected, the design team and their partners will begin working with the public at large to shape a final design.
Croft said public engagement for that process will start in early 2021.
Along with significant help from the federal government, the new gallery is being made possible by the largest single donation ever given to the art gallery.
The Donald R. Sobey Foundation, with The Sobey Foundation, announced today they were donating $10-million to help fund the project.