Paula Simons: Heart of glass: New Royal Alberta Museum aims to be transparent, in more ways than one
Let there be light.
An excellent beginning for a creation story.
The new Royal Alberta Museum is a work in progress. Its exhibit halls are bare, waiting for display cases and exhibits. The new Bug Room is appropriately hot and humid, but devoid of creepy-crawlies. The 250-seat theatre is going through its final sound checks, but no one struts or frets upon its stage. The lobby cafe has its panini press and its latte machine installed, but it will be another eight or nine months before we can pop in for a snack.
When the RAM opens in early 2018, it will be the largest museum in Western Canada — 39,000 square metres, with 7,800 square metres of exhibition space — roughly double what the old museum in Glenora had.
“We have 2.4 million pieces in our collection, and about 90 per cent are moving downtown with us,” says the museum’s executive director, Chris Robinson. “We’ll have 5,300 pieces on display in our opening exhibits.”
Royal Alberta Museum executive director Chris Robinson stands above the entrance to the museum on Friday, April 21, 2017. GREG SOUTHAM / POSTMEDIA
But this empty building is already full — full of light.
Floor to ceiling windows pull the sky and the street straight into the lobby and the great hall, connecting visitors inside the museum to the urban landscape, framing downtown Edmonton and Chinatown from new and unexpected angles.
Where the old museum shyly turned its back to the street, the new building engages and connects with the city. Created by Edmonton architect Donna Clare and Toronto museum designer Michael Lundholm, it’s purpose-built to turn its gaze outward, to the world it curates.