One of the most visible and public ways for an organization to make a statement about their brand is through their building. Architecture is an elegant and very dynamic language that can help or hinder your brand, depending on how you use it. Interiors can also speak volumes about who you are and what you stand for.
On a small scale, this can be as simple as making sure your business is located in a respectable building, and that the interiors are conducive to a memorable experience for your customers and staff. On a larger scale, when your organization has a building all its own, the choices you make about what it looks like, where it is located, and how the insides are set up become critically important.
Recently the Vancouver Art Gallery’s plans to build a new, purpose-built art gallery were made public. They hope to locate the gallery on the site of the former greyhound bus terminal, currently the parking lot near the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
This plan involves finding an architect of international stature to design and build a landmark building, something that reflects the importance of the visual arts in our province and our country, and the elevated stature and size of the VAG.
Their current location, in a heritage courthouse, is their third home since the gallery was born, and like all organizations that are successful, it has outgrown the space. The collection is inefficiently scattered in costly offsite rental facilities. The exhibit space is crowded and at capacity. Only 3 per cent of the permanent collection can be exhibited at any given time. The school programs are so over-subscribed they need to turn schools away. There isn’t a lecture theatre. There isn’t room for the large works that many contemporary artists are creating.
Furthermore, the bricks and mortar aren’t up to snuff. There are inadequate heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems, too few passenger and service elevators, water penetration in various areas, and a host of other structural problems.
There are some high-profile people who are complaining that the VAG should just stay put, and dig down; or somehow convince Sears to vacate the building next door and build a bridge over there. But the underground chambers and tunnels beneath the VAG already stretch from edge to edge of the city block on which the VAG stands, and annexing other surrounding buildings seems like so much scotch-tape-and-staples to me. Plus, it would mean shutting down the VAG for three years or more while construction, likely costing more than a new building, takes place. The biggest argument seems to be that the current location is the “heart of the city” and the VAG must therefore forever stay right where it is, like no other solution can possibly be found. In fact, many suggestions to make the old courthouse an even more vital and publicly accessible heart are currently part of the debate, and should be fully explored.
Back to branding. The Vancouver Art Gallery is an incredibly vital and successful organization. They educate. They inspire. They support. They promote. Every great city has a great art gallery, and after the huge high of the 2010 Games, I don’t think there is any doubt that Vancouver is a great, world-class city, deserving of a cultural beacon. A cobbled-together, makeshift, make-do approach is just not the brand that we should be fighting for, or the brand statement that makes sense for who we are as a people; as citizens of this great city. I sure hope that everyone reading this who believes in what we can accomplish together (hell, we just hosted what many are calling the best Winter Olympic Games ever) won’t settle for a second-best approach. It’s not the right decision in terms of the brand of our art gallery, or the city of Vancouver.
Anyone who follows me on Twitter or Facebook will know that I am a supporter of the VAG, so that’s the full disclosure part of my article taken care of. But really, can you imagine a New York where the Museum of Modern Art was a patchwork quilt of former retail and government buildings and subterranean chambers? What would that say about the brand of the MOMA and of NYC? Can you imagine London without the Tate Modern; perhaps instead a bunch of pubs and flats linked together by pedestrian bridges? Or Paris without the Pompidou? Even here at home, the new AGO in Toronto is a symbol (love it or hate it) of what a cultural institution can do for the life of a city if we dare to dream big and refuse to compromise.
Want more information? There's a video at the VAG Facebook page.
