SEEING THE LIGHT
‘Bunker on Elgin’ to be seen in a new light with Phase 1 door-opening
Beatriz, 5, and Carolina Guerra, 3, play with an art installation at the National Arts Centre on Wednesday during a preview of a $110.5-million renovation that has updated the building and is also meant to make it more inviting.
The NAC is throwing open its doors to the public on Canada Day to offer a look at the first phase of a project aimed at turning Ottawa’s fortress-like performing arts palace into a light-filled “crossroads” for the city. On Wednesday, the media got a sneak peek.
Built as a centennial project, the NAC was designed in the “brutalist” style popular from the ’50s into the ’70s. The word originates from the French “béton brut” or raw concrete, the material of choice for architects working in this style. Essentially, the NAC was built to be a fortress for the performing arts.
But the way people use public buildings has changed since 1967.
Architect Donald Schmitt considers his firm to be “marriage brokers” of architecture, taking the best qualities of the existing building and making it more transparent and inviting. “Both parts bring out the best in each other,” he said.
Fifty years ago, brutalism had fans in architecture circles. And it still has, says Schmitt. But the general public found massive concrete walls alienating. The NAC took its share of criticism for a design that turned its back on Elgin Street and views of Ottawa’s most iconic buildings. The design sometimes left patrons struggling to find a door.
Schmitt’s task was to animate Confederation Square, to embrace the War Memorial and to open up sightlines to Ottawa landmarks, including Parliament Hill and the Château Laurier. And to do it on time and on budget.
“It was a time in architecture history where architects were seeking truth, a robust massing and a fortress-like architecture,” said Schmitt, whose firm has designed more than 40 performing arts spaces, including a current project on David Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center in New York City.
“These qualities can be completely hostile to the way people use buildings. People saw it as a bunker that was unwelcoming and unfriendly.”
The ribbon will be cut on Saturday by Charles, Prince of Wales, a notable foe of brutalist architecture. In 1988, the heir to the throne described Birmingham’s 1974 library designed by John Madin as “a place where books are incinerated, not kept.” In 1984, he called a proposed extension to the National Gallery in London a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.”
The NAC will be open to the public starting at about 3 p.m. Saturday after the ribbon-cutting, with free performances and activities that will continue on Sunday.
The rejuvenation project has two more phases yet to be complete and will wrap up next February. At a cost of $110.5 million, it’s the federal government’s largest investment in cultural infrastructure for the Canada 150 celebrations.
When complete, there will be 60,000 square feet of new space.