Vancouver Art gallery, Canada
Gathering place : A regular gathering spot for protests and demonstrations the Vancouver Art Gallery's la and steps hosts gatherings several time a week. The Vancouver Art Gallery is the monthly meeting spot for Vancouver's Critical Mass as well as flash mobs the Zombie Walk Pro Marijuana rallies and numerous evironmental demonstrations.
Plans : In November 2007 the gallery announced plans to move to a new building at Larwill Park a block formerly occupied by a bus depot on the corner of Cambie and Georgia streets opposite the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. The new building would be about 30,000 square metres (320,000 sq ft) almost 10 times the current building size and would include more gallery space for the permanent collection now in storage a larger exhibit space for visiting international works more children's and community programming and an improved storage and display environment. Construction was planned to begin after the 2010 Olympics with a tentative opening date in 2013. The projected cost was in the hundreds of millions of dollars and the gallery hoped to secure funding from provincial and federal governments as well as private donors.
In may 2008 a different site was chosen for the new gallery on land occupied by the Plaza of Nations near BC Place. The new plans would double the gallery size to 320,000 square feet (30,000 m2). In 2013 the decision was made to go back to the Georgia Cambie site. In Aprill 2014 Vancouver Art Gallery selected Herzog and de Meuron from a group of five shortlisted tirms from across the globe following a series of in depth interviews and site visits to significant projects designed by each firm.
The finalists announced in January 2014 represent five of 75 firms from 16 different countries who submitted their credentials through open request for qualifications (RFQ) process issued by the gallery. The new Vancouver Art Gallery buildings Herzog and de Meuron's first project in Canada working in Collaboration with Vancouver based Perkins Will as executive architect in the realization of the design. In September 2015 the gallery unveiled its conceptual design for the new building in a public event held at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. The project is expected to break ground in late 2017/ early 2018.