Hariri Pontarini Architects (HPA) have been selected to design a new, stand-alone art gallery at York University. The new building will become a centrepiece at the Keele Campus, building upon the rich history of the Art Gallery of York University (AGYU), and magnifying its reach into the local community and the world beyond.
Rendering of the winning design. Image courtesy of Hariri Pontarini Architects.
Boasting a contemporary, contextual design with the firm’s signature curves, HPA’s proposal stood out in the online design competition which saw a wide show of interest from strong contenders in the architectural community. Moriyama and Teshima Architects and gh3 were also on the shortlist. All three firms have received Governor General’s Medals in Architecture.
The new building will be located at the heart of the School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design, adjacent to the Harry W. Arthurs Common, steps from the subway station. The three-storey building will highlight contemporary and historic art and include a ground level event space with four separate gallery spaces set within a xeriscape garden.
AGYU’s collection currently contains 1,700 works including…
prominent donations of works by Norval Morrisseau and Andy Warhol
200 prints and sculptures by renowned and influential Inuit artists including Kenojuak Ashevek and Kananginak Pootoogook
paradigmatic work by Canadian “Automatistes” Jean-Paul Riopelle and Paul-Emile Borduas
American Modernists such as Helen Frankenthaler and Kenneth Noland
RISE, an internationally acclaimed film by Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca, featuring performances from some of Toronto’s most influential spoken word and rap artists.
Aerial: The new building will sit at the heart of York Keele Campus’ School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design, adjacent to the Harry W. Arthurs Common, between the Accolade East Building and the Centre for Film & Theatre. Image courtesy of Googlemaps.
Founding Partner Siamak Hariri cites his excitement to help reimagine the AGYU’s future, “To signify this transformation, we were inspired by metaphor and nature. Like a butterfly, each of the five wings of the new gallery extend their reach out to the campus and of course beyond. Responding to the AGYU’s aspiration to expand the social and civic role of the gallery, the building will have a powerful presence, a new presence, embracing the full University Common, and welcoming and attracting visitors to all the wonder it has to offer.”
The AGYU opened in 1988 and moved into its current 3,000 ft² in 2006. The new building, combined with the AGYU’s existing space, will form a unified art institution and an important hub for artistic engagement. “The new design reflects our vision of an accessible and collaborative art gallery that serves as a space for creation, exhibition and appreciation of diverse art and culture,” says President & Vice- Chancellor Rhonda Lenton.
Philanthropists and art collectors Joan and Martin Goldfarb donated $5 million towards the gallery, kicking off this expansion and flagging the importance of the arts on campus. The eponymous Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery will honour the Goldfarb’s long history of supporting the arts at York University.
Rendering of the winning design, aerial view from across the Harry W. Arthurs Common. Image courtesy of Hariri Pontarini Architects.
With this win, HPA adds to its notable cultural and institutional portfolio, which includes the recently opened Tom Patterson Theatre in Stratford, and the internationally award-winning Bahá’í Temple of South America.
You can learn more from our Database file for the project, linked below. If you’d like to, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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In the pre-dawn hours of March 18, 1990, following a festive St. Patrick’s Day in Boston, two men dressed as police officers walked into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and walked off with an estimated $500 million in art treasures. Despite efforts by the local police, federal agents, amateur sleuths and not a few journalists, no one has found any of the 13 works lost in the largest art theft in history, including a rare Vermeer and three precious Rembrandts.
The legacy of the heist is always apparent to museum visitors who, decades later, still confront vacant frames on the gallery walls where paintings once hung. They are kept there as a reminder of loss, museum officials say, and in the hope that the works may eventually return. Last month, Richard Abath, the night watchman who mistakenly allowed in the thieves, died at 57. He was a vital figure in an investigation that remains active, but where the trails have grown cold.
Here are five oddities that make this one of the most compelling of American crimes.
The thieves took a really strange array of stuff.
Important paintings were taken from their frames during the heist. But other items that were stolen were not nearly of the same caliber: a nondescript Chinese metal vase; a fairly ordinary bronze eagle from atop a flagpole; and five minor sketches by Degas. The thieves walked past paintings and jade figurines worth millions, including a drawing by Michelangelo, yet they spent some of their 81 minutes inside fussing to free the vase from a tricky locking mechanism.
The handcuffed guard was later scrutinized.
Abath, one of two guards on duty, was handcuffed and gagged with duct tape. He was never named a suspect. But over the years investigators continued to review his behavior because he had, against protocol, opened the museum door to the thieves. (The second guard, who is still living, was never a focus of investigative interest.) The F.B.I. monitored Abath’s assets for decades but never saw any suspicious income. He consistently said he told investigators everything he knew, and an F.B.I. polygraph he voluntarily took was deemed “inconclusive.”
The empty frames have stayed on the walls.
The museum was once Gardner’s home and she wanted to ensure that her expansive art collection was displayed in the same manner she had arranged it. She stipulated in her will that not a thing was to be removed or rearranged, or the collection should be shipped to Paris for auction, with the money going to Harvard University. Though it’s long been reported that the empty frames are left hanging to accord with that will, the museum says that is actually a long uncorrected mistake. “We have chosen to display them,” it said in a statement “because 1.) we remain confident that the works will someday return to their rightful place in the galleries; and 2.) they are a poignant reminder of the loss to the public of these unique works.”
The thieves left behind a prized Rembrandt.
A self-portrait of Rembrandt at 23 was taken down by the thieves but left leaning against a cabinet. “I really believe they probably forgot it,” said Anthony Amore, the museum’s current security chief. The work was on an oak panel, making it heavier than the paintings on canvas that they stole. But it was about the same dimensions as Govaert Flinck’s “Landscape With an Obelisk,” which was also on oak, and stolen.
The list of suspects has been a dizzying stew.
Investigators have looked at all manner of burglars and art thieves and dismissed all sorts of theories. Did Whitey Bulger steal the art to help the Irish Republican Army raise money for arms? No. Did the Mafia want a bargaining chip to help free a member from prison? Maybe. In 2015 the F.B.I. named two long-dead, Boston-area criminals, George Reissfelder and Lenny DiMuzio, as the likely bandits. They have never publicly discussed why.
Investigators still hope to recover the art. The museum upped its reward to $10 million in 2017 from $5 million in 1997 and $1 million in 1990. It has devoted several sections of its website to educating the public about the crime. It embraces publicity in the hope that someone, someday, somewhere will recognize one of the artworks and contact it.
“We have followed every lead and continue to check out new leads,” Amore said, adding, “All that matters is finding out where they are today and getting them back.”
Banksy is back with his first confirmed installation of 2024.
The anonymous British street artist posted on his Instagram account on Monday that he was behind a mural that was first spotted in Finsbury Park in London over the weekend.
In the artwork, a stenciled figure of a woman appears to have sprayed green paint over a white wall behind a pollarded tree, thus giving an optical illusion effect of foliage.
Others suggested it was a pessimistic take on the environment or a commentary on greenwashing, the tactic the United Nations defines on its website as “misleading the public to believe that a company or other entity is doing more to protect the environment than it is.”
Documentarian James Peak, the creator of the BBC’s “The Banksy Story” radio series, said the message is “clear” that “nature’s struggling and it is up to us to help it grow back.”
“When you step back, it looks like the tree is bursting to life, but in a noticeably fake and synthetic way,” he told the broadcaster. “And it’s pretty subtle for a massive tree, I’d say.”
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