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Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA)

Actually, my nickname for it is "The View-Master". Needs a slot on top where I can stick something like this in

vm_cart_carnival01.jpg
 
from fridays edmonton journal. a desciption of the 4 models

You're Looking At The New EAG
But which of these designs from Zaha Hadid, Arthur Erickson, Will Alsop and Randall Stout will the Edmonton Art Gallery choose to build?

Rick McConnell
The Edmonton Journal


Friday, September 16, 2005

....

RANDALL STOUT ARCHITECTS

The Los Angeles architect designed the Hunter Museum of American Art, which opened in Chattanooga, Tenn., earlier this year. His plans for Edmonton reflect an understanding of the city's climate and culture and the challenges it faces.

Using glass, zinc and huge curving panels of stainless steel, Stout's model draws inspiration from the aurora borealis and from Inuit rock compositions called Inukshuks. The Stout design would offer a stunning steel streetscape. The plan calls for a redesigned LRT platform across 99th Street to visually link the gallery to City Hall.

"The building design may be seen as the largest object in the gallery's collection," Stout writes in his proposal.

Widely known for his work on "sustainable" architecture, Stout proposes using "green" features and "intelligent engineering" to save a projected four million cubic pounds of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

WILL ALSOP DESIGN AND QUADRANGLE ARCHITECTS

The eccentric British artist who put the Ontario College of Art & Design up on stilts proposes putting Edmonton's new gallery inside what he calls "a bag," an odd-looking external wrapper of glass and blown concrete. Like most Alsop designs, this one is abstract and audacious.

The resigned gallery, Alsop writes in his proposal, "must anticipate and accommodate new art practice by embracing the idea of potentially being wrong."

Alsop anticipates and tries to answer one of the principal problems facing the gallery and Sir Winston Churchill Square. "At present, the action is on Whyte Avenue and the Square is quiet," he writes.

As lead architect on the team, Alsop proposes to transform the existing galleries and suspend new ones in a "floating box" built above the 1960s-era building. A large sliding glass door would open the ground floor to the street during warm weather.

"We would like to remove the curbs to the street in front and repave with the same material as is on the gallery ground floor," he writes.

With one eye on the future, Alsop's design also calls for a possible "art hotel" -- tall and skinny and mirroring City Hall's iconic clock tower -- to be built later on the site.

ARTHUR ERICKSON, NICK MILKOVICH, DUB ARCHITECTS

Vancouver's Arthur Erickson has been designing breathtaking public buildings for three decades, from the Museum of Anthropology on the UBC campus (1976) to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Wash., which opened three years ago.

Working with local architect Gene Dub, who designed Edmonton's City Hall, Erickson's plan for the EAG would see the existing building encased in a new "skin" of glass and aluminum. An open-air cafe on the second floor would overlook the square below. The remodelled and expanded interior would include a massive grand main hall, galleries for both permanent and temporary collections, and a multi-purpose theatre below ground level.

ZAHA HADID

Winner of the 2004 Pritzker Prize, the field's highest honour, Zaha Hadid was once known as a "theoretical" architect, meaning her designs won competitions but were seldom built. That has changed in recent years. Her design for the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art opened in Cincinnati two years ago.

For Edmonton, the Iraqi-born architect plans to erect three new galleries above the existing building. One would be a horizontal "pod" suspended above the roof, with glass along the entire south wall, to "permit views towards the Saskatchewan River." Another gallery would be built as a vertical tower; the third would include an outdoor terrace with room for a sculpture garden. The three new galleries would be equipped with louvers so rooms could be blacked out or opened to the sun. Each would have skylights and the three would be linked by a central glass atrium.
 
I realize that Hadid is flavour of the month, but her design does not get me excited. Its bulky forms do not seem to relate to each other, or to the city, very well (I too do not like what looks to meet the street).

I would go for Alsop's design, just because it looks and sounds so damn unusual. His OCAD design proves that he is capable of pulling off the unconventional while being functional at the same time (and on a tight budget).
 
I'm a big Hadid fan (almost religiously), but I'm not sooo thrilled about this particular design. The base looks '70's forbidding, and the overall form doesn't excite me. It might be the fault of the rendering - and maybe the interior plans are amazing - but to me it's not her finest, by a long shot.
Alsop gets my nod on this one.
 
The base looks '70's forbidding, and the overall form doesn't excite me.

It looks like she kept the excisting building as is, and built an additional structure on top.
 
It appears that the panel will recommend Alsop's design to the board... with the final decision made tomorrow.

here are some more renderings of his vision for the gallery

alsop-front-sml.jpg


alsop-side-2.jpg


alsop-side-1.jpg


alsop-eag-final-web.jpg
 
I love it. I'm so excited that Alsop has opened an office here in Toronto. I only hope we get a city full of his brilliant work. He is a glazing master.
 
David Staples: Art Gallery of Alberta gains renown because it celebrates our world
Not many buildings stand the test of time. None of the five original Fort Edmonton trading posts survived, nor have the vast majority of the city’s pre-First World War buildings. We’re now tearing down steel and glass modernist structures from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. It’s way too early to know if any of our newest buildings will be around in 100 years.

For example, will the downtown arena make it? Or the Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA)?

The AGA is of particular interest because the building was derided by noteworthy critics when it was first proposed in 2005, but has since grown in reputation. It won the prestigious American Architecture Award in 2012. Now, the prominent U.S. architecture and design website Curbed named the AGA as one of the 17 most beautiful museums in the world. Other museums on the same list include the work of “starchitects” like Frank Gehry in Bilboa, Spain; I.M. Pei in Qatar and Santiago Calatrava in Valencia.

Of the AGA, Curbed writer Megan Barber says: “Randall Stout Architects designed the structure with a massive ribbon of stainless steel that wraps around and through the interior. Called ‘The Borealis,’ the swooping lines represent the northern lights, a frequent occurrence in the Edmonton night sky.”

http://edmontonjournal.com/entertai...-gains-renown-because-it-celebrates-our-world
 
Paula Simons: Free Art Gallery of Alberta admission for kids, students from now on
“There is no must in art, because art is free,” said the great Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky.

The Art Gallery of Alberta seems to be taking that motto to heart, in a rather literal sense.

As of Tuesday, the AGA will be offering free admission to all children and youth under the age of 18. Admission will also be free to anyone registered as a student in an Alberta post-secondary institution, regardless of age.

The policy change was announced to coincide with spring break for many Edmonton-area primary and secondary students — which should come as good news to any parents trying to figure out just what to do with their progeny this week.

http://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/...berta-admission-for-kids-students-from-now-on
 
Very positive news.

--

Prairie Catering is now the exclusive provider of food service, events, and facility booking at the Art Gallery of Alberta, according to a news release. The partnership includes the space that houses Zinc Restaurant.

“Our goal with the new space is to inspire and usher in a new wave of hospitality concepts in Edmonton,” said Prairie Catering owner Jimmy Shewchuk. “Considering the disruption throughout the pandemic to the hospitality industry, I believe we have a unique opportunity for new ideas to emerge as we experience yet another hospitality renaissance.”

When public health guidelines permit, Prairie Catering plans to host food pop-ups. Chefs Mark Bellows and Ryan Brodziak of The Local Omnivore are involved.

When the pandemic shuttered restaurants in March 2020, Zinc temporarily shut its doors but never did reopen even after restrictions lifted in the summer. The last chef who helmed the restaurant, Doreen Prei, shared in October 2020 that the restaurant had permanently closed.

 

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