Who Looks Outside Dreams; Who Looks Inside Awakens

It would be personally disatisfying and publicly shameful to allow the collected knowledge, research, history and observational data to be forever shelved atop a dusty microfiche cabinet in the academic tombs of UBC Library. This, my second attempt (the first attempt being a plea to Kathleen Bartell for representation and input on my Thesis Committee) at confronting the director of the Art Gallery, through a City of Vancouver design competition, with a proposal for a newly invigorated civic heart (space) in Vancouver. '21 Places' offered me a unique opportunity to 'publicize' the more than 18 months of academic study of what I truly believe to harbour the best potential for 'the' Civic Square of Vancouver. The following presentation panels are a hyphenated version of my Master Thesis, presented as pointed ideas, in an attempt to stimulate discourse, for a City that continues to look outward - ignoring that within.

TWO SIDES TO STAGING PUBLIC SPACE: Enhancing Civic Function and Establishing Symbolic Content to the Vancouver Art Gallery Landscape

The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) Square Plan proposes to integrate opportunities for artistic and cultural expression into the surrounding landscape. The primary goal is to bring an active and vibrant cultural life to the City’s centre now, and in the years to come - embodying the spirit, character, and cumulative history of the city.

In seeking to understand and distill the processes of museum culture and public space, themes emerge: museum-landscape analogs. These analogs are derived with the intention of their use as a framework for future design - an alternative way of interpreting site, as well as the greater landscape.

The infusion of art will animate the spaces, staging a dialogue between the gallery and the public, and the public with each other. Future expansion needs of the Gallery will provide opportunities for the enhancement of Vancouver’s civic centre. Beyond aesthetic enhancement, it is important that the space responds to the needs of its citizenry. Enrichment of the Vancouver Art Gallery Square will restore vibrancy and reverence to the center of our city, a center that shall ultimately invite people and reinvigorate public life.