From the debate I have seen it is not a question of whether the Art Gallery needs a new home – I don’t most would disagree with that view. The question is do they need a sole use purpose build building or can they be part of a larger development at Larwell Park. I fall to understand the rationale as to why the Art Gallery needs a sole-purpose building. You need to look no further than the Central Library branch to see how an iconic building can be constructed with multiple uses. The revenue from the commercial component of an art gallery expansion can be used not only to pay the cost of building the art gallery but potentially of providing other benefits to the City of Vancouver as well.

We’re in debt provincially & civically because of the recession. We’re in debt because of the Olympics. Now an un-needed $500 M retractable roof & a casino are being attempted to be foisted upon us. Can anyone seriously consider adding another several hundred million dollar so called signature building [read: a monument to a few peoples egos] which says nothing about Vancouver. Let’s finally get the homeless places to live before we do any of the above.

My experience as an architect has taught me that living within limits can produce even more creative solutions. The Gallery can be expanded on 3 sides to say 2 floors below grade as has already been explored. Surely this will more than double the exhibit space & maybe even improve on some of the shortcomings. Then, if more space is needed, why not a series of community based, maybe specialist ‘satellite’ galleries? That is more Vancouver, will serve us better, can be phased as we can afford it &, it is a truely creative solution, not just another exercise in technological gymnastics which could be plunked down in any city anywhere.

I agree with Bill M. If the VAG was serious about displaying its collection, there are a more than enough sites around the city. We have more convention centres than Vegas. Let’s clear out the VAG basement and stick a few paintings on the new VCC walls and let the public see what we have. Why try to build a Prado? No one will travel to Vancouver to see our art gallery. The last thing we need is a world class building for our village class collection.

. . . the point being . . . surely at this time, in the list of civic priorities, a new art gallery building is way down there with the mud sharks . . .

Roy Arden — Experienced letter-to-the-editor writers, mostly cranky old farts like myself, will offer sound advice when they counsel: if you want to be taken seriously, never declare that something leaves you “appalled” or worse “shocked and appalled”.

I wonder if the kind of reasoning you offer in defense of your position, is the same that inflicted Libeskind’s ROM redesign on Toronto. I haven’t seen it in person but could it possibly be as self-consciously awful as it appears to be?

The current Art Gallery location in Arthur Erickson’s fine civic centre is expandable below and north and south (the building currently leased by UBC I believe).

@ Roy Arden: >>It has been proven definitively that cultural spending returns many times the revenue invested. Institutions define a city. Investing in institutions like the Vancouver Art Gallery ensures a rich culture for the next generations.<>Downtown Vancouver is just not that interesting mainly due to the mediocre buildings that are there now, mainly build in the last 40 yrs or so.<<

So you argue to leave VAG where it is for THAT reason? Some of us prefer to see a new VAG developed on the Larwill site as an opportunity to do something about said mediocrity, which exists as much on our utilitarian streets and poor urban design as well as architecture, with very few notable exceptions.

I would encourage the city to follow such a move with an urban design exercise for Georgia Street at the very least.

I would also codify the design competition RFP to encourage the utilization of regional references (no Roman Coliseums!) and art works in its outward form, very generous gallery storage space coupled with classroom facilities, a great restaurant(s) facing a generous plaza, and the highest energy efficiencies possible.

So many critics are using the recession and other projects proposed nearby to negate the VAG's potential from an economic perspective. I say we, as a remarkably wealthy society, need art galleries and other cultural institutions — not to mention dealing with finality our social constraints such as homelessness — a lot more than we need casinos, stadium roofs and suburban freeways.

It's a matter of priorities, not of resources.

“So many critics are using the recession and other projects proposed nearby to negate the VAG’s potential from an economic perspective. …It’s a matter of priorities, not of resources.”

“Investing in institutions like the Vancouver Art Gallery ensures a rich culture for the next generations.”

Although I don’t necessarily disagree with this line of thinking, I think it needs to be put in a little broader context. The problem is that the government has already made a choice in priorities that has dealt a serious blow to the vibrancy of arts and culture in the region: cuts to B.C. Gaming arts charities and B.C. Arts Council, amounting to close to a 90% drop in arts funding.

Consider the economic and cultural implications:

The charitable group I used to run, with a tiny budget of 50,000 a year of which about $15,000 came from Government funding, served about 500 teen artists a year, contracted over 20 professional artists and performers a year, produced a sold out public event annually, participated in local festivals such as Word on the Street and BC Book and Magazine Week, maintained a part-time employee, and did regular business with local printers and design subcontractors. Multiply all that lost economic and cultural activity times the hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller groups devastated by the arts cuts, and you get some idea of how economically backwards these “priorities” are.

To then turn around and call it a “priority” to spend nearly 10 times the total amount of the arts cuts in ONE monolithic institution that serves a fraction of the arts community, flies in the face of reason and opens up the criticism of elitism.

This is the same type of thinking that put Bing Thom’s community-based multi-institutional vision of the Larwill Park site on the shelf in favour of the grandiose, single-purpose design of the VAG that the Premier prefers.

From my perspective, these decisions have very little to do with economic or cultural vitality, and more to do with the massive egos of a few individuals who feel that their legacies are intimately tied to high-profile megaproject developments rather than cultivating a healthy and vibrant community. It is a choice between a far-reaching, strong and flexible community of institutions, and the domination of a few big money institutions.

So, while I fully support the priority and value of seeing the VAG flourish and expand, I think the timing of this project, and its current incarnation as a stand-alone monolith, does little to improve the economic or cultural viability of the arts in BC. Other Provinces like Ontario recognize the economic and job creation stimulus of the arts sector as a whole, and have expanded funding for the Arts over the past year. The economies of scale in Canada require government intervention — even in a population-heavy market like Ontario — in order to realize those economic and cultural benefits. So, to me, restoring arts funding is a much more sensible priority that has many and far reaching benefits – benefits that the VAG relocation project on its own cannot come close to matching.