Letting the Light Out: Qaumajuq, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Letting the Light Out: Qaumajuq, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Architect and educator Lawrence Bird considers Qaumajuq’s rippling impact on its urban surroundings.
By
PHOTOS Lindsey Reid
A billowing white building, like an icy cloud, has descended on the Prairie landscape. Mooring itself to an urban site, it reflects the long, glancing sunlight of the Prairie while also catching another kind of light: the midnight sun of Canada’s North.
In architect Michael Maltzan’s words, the North’s cultural and physical geography is one of “ineffable qualities […] where the water shimmers away and melds with the sky.” For Maltzan, that geography enjoys a specific “quality of light […] that animates all the forms there.”
On March 27, the Winnipeg Art Gallery will open its Qaumajuq center to the public. It’s a $52.4 million addition to the firm’s downtown headquarters that includes a stunning exhibition of Inuit art.
According to the gallery’s director, Stephen Borys, the new section of the museum is meant to honor Inuit art while also acknowledging the colonial history and moving forward in the atmosphere of reconciliation and integration.
The center, whose name translates to “brightness” in Inuktitut, houses over 10,000 Inuit pieces from the WAG’s collection that had previously been overlooked and confined in storage.
The four-story structure was designed by Michael Maltzan of Los Angeles in collaboration with Cibinel Architecture of Winnipeg. A three-story glass vault houses approximately 5,000 Inuit works. There’s also an 8,000-square-foot display area, a 90-seat theater, a coffee shop, and art studios.
On March 27, the Winnipeg Art Gallery will open its Qaumajuq center to the public. It’s a $52.4 million addition to the firm’s downtown headquarters that includes a stunning exhibition of Inuit art. According to the gallery’s director, Stephen Borys, the new section of the museum is meant to honor Inuit art while also acknowledging […] Read More
Winnipeg Free Press
Last Modified: 9:18 AM CDT Monday, May. 3, 2021 | Updates
Ivan Bobersky’s 1926 photograph Immigrants Arriving at Railway Station
Few organizations in the city have been around as long as the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Winnipeg Foundation.
Few organizations in the city have been around as long as the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Winnipeg Foundation.
So it’s natural when the foundation celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, the gallery would mark the occasion with an exhibition.
Collection of Oseredok, the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre (Ivan Bobersky Collection)
Ivan Bobersky’s photograph Back Alley, Hargrave Street and Donald Street, from the 1920s, is part of The Alloways’ Gift at the WAG.
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