Patkau Architects, James Dow / Patkau Architects, Ema Peter, and Robert Stefanowicz

OBJECTIVE

Gallery Director, Reid Shier requested exhibition space free of obstacles, with floors and walls that can be cut into, ceilings from which anything could be hung in any position, universal access to power and media, and lighting that can be natural or controlled. The main gallery on the upper level is thus conceived as a ready instrument for creativity, more studio than museum. The structural musculature of the building performs the dual purposes of lifting the gallery and providing a clear space, completely daylit from above with diffuse northern light.

A system of steel purlins provide track for lighting, data, media, suspended works, and temporary partitions. The robust and easily patched oak flooring features a continuous central channel for services that give ready connection to installations of any configuration. This upper level also contains a large flexible event gallery for education, outreach, and private functions with administrative offices nestled along the western side. The southern wall of the event gallery is an operable glazed panorama overlooking Burrard Inlet and Vancouver.

At ground level, community members can enjoy this landmark from both adjacent plaza and interior settings. The entrance, lobby, gift shop, and café are encompassed by full-glazing, offering the public inviting views of art and artifacts housed within. Technical support spaces lie directly underneath the administrative offices, mitigating back-of-house disruptions. These fine-grained street level uses make the building an attractor for the growing social life on the city’s waterfront and share the energy of the Gallery with the public space.

CONTEXT

The Polygon Gallery is the rebirth of the Presentation House Gallery, a passionately independent photography and media institution in North Vancouver for over forty years. More site-maker than site response, the new 22,600 square foot building stands at the edge of urban waterfront renewal where infrastructure is reimagined and culture outgrows from an industrial past.

The main mass of the building is lifted from the ground plane to provide open access to both a new public plaza and a wide view of the Vancouver skyline across Burrard Inlet to the south. Its iconic saw-toothed profile is clad in layers of mirrored stainless steel beneath expanded aluminum decking. The interplay between the two materials gives the singular mass an ephemeral depth that shifts with seasonal sunlight and evening atmosphere. Looking north offers a view of North Vancouver’s expanding downtown core and past this, the towering mountains of the Pacific Coastal Range.

The Polygon Gallery is a non-collecting institution which has a mandate to exhibit and disseminate photography and media art, emphasizing contemporary Canadian work within a context of historical and international art. Organized on two levels, the upper is home to rotating visual media exhibits, educational and private event spaces, with administrative spaces tucked in behind. The floor below acts as a public activator, animating the urban ground plane. Visitors to the plaza are drawn into the entrance lobby and exhibition space, treated to café and gift shop access once inside. Technical support spaces lie on the western perimeter.