Vancouver Art Gallery

The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is the fifth largest art museum in Canada and the largest in the west of the country. It is located at 750 Hornby Street in Vancouver.

Exhibition

The VAG was founded in 1931 and was initially housed in an Art Deco building on Georgia Street. 1983 the museum moved to its current location, a former courthouse of the Province of British Columbia, after this had been rebuilt by the architect Arthur Erickson with an expenditure of 20 million Canadian dollars. The museum has an exhibition area of ​​41,400 m². The permanent collection consists of some 8,000 works of art including 200 major works by Emily Carr and illustrations by Marc Chagall. In addition to the presentation of your collection organized VAG tours and public lectures. The exhibitions were influenced among other things by the longtime curator Doris Shadbolt.

Building

Under The museum is housed in the former main courthouse of Vancouver, the former seat of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal of British Columbia. The neoclassical building with a floor area of 15,329 m² was built in 1906 by architect Francis Rattenbury. The building has Ionic columns, a central dome, a formal portico and incorporated into the masonry reliefs. During the construction marble from Alaska, Tennessee and Vermont was used. The building replaced the old court at the Victory Square and initially contained 18 courtrooms.

In 1912 one designed by Thomas Hooper cultivation on the west side of the building. This part is the only one who was not converted into a museum. Instead, it was declared a National Monument and still possesses the original furniture of a court.

The building was declared on 16 June 1980 on the National Historic Site of Canada.

Before the entrance to the Georgia Street is the Centennial Fountain. This fountain was erected in 1966 to mark the centennial anniversary of the unification of the colonies Vancouver Iceland and British Columbia.