CARDINAL’S WOW SPACE
Hall will make history
Architect Douglas Cardinal fervently hopes the new History Hall now being built at the Canadian Museum of History will help vanquish, once and for all, the “apartheid” that still afflicts the country’s First Nations.
Speaking Tuesday in the soaring 40,000-square-foot exhibition hall he designed, the 82-year-old Cardinal said he hoped future visitors will get an appreciation of all the cultures that created Canada, particularly First Nations.
“That’s very important for Canadians, because we have to get rid of apartheid and genocide,” he said in an interview. “That’s been going on for 150 years. I see it every day. This is state racism. It just can’t continue.”
Cardinal’s harsh words came as museum officials were giving journalists a sneak preview of the work- in-progress History Hall, scheduled to open on July 1, 2017. (The Citizen was given a preview of its own in January.)
Construction of the hall itself is now complete, though none of the planned exhibits has yet been assembled or installed.
When it opens, the $30-million hall will tell the story of 15,000 years of history in Canada in its three galleries. The history of First Nations — largely absent in the museum’s now-demolished Canada Hall — will be woven prominently throughout the narrative.
That pleases Cardinal, whose father was aboriginal. “After all,” he said, “it is the aboriginal people who are the backbone of this country.”
It was aboriginals and their relationship with the Crown that created the country, said Cardinal, something most Canadians forget. “It’s not part of their history, but it should be part of their his- tory. Most Canadians, if they really knew what was happening in First Nations communities, they would be incensed.”
It’s important to make “invisible First Nations visible,” he said, “because we can’t continue on this terrible lack of human rights that is perpetrated on the people every day.”
Education is the key, he says. “The only thing that will create change is for people to understand that, if we have any dignity as Canadians, we cannot continue apartheid.”
Cardinal designed the landmark museum three decades ago, but his vision for the History Hall space was jettisoned when the former Canada Hall was built.
Rather than the flowing open spaces Cardinal envisioned, the Canada Hall was “more like a maze,” he said. Given a rare second opportunity, “I wanted to create a wow space for the History Hall. This is it. I’ve brought it back to the drama that I wanted to represent.”
Two of the new hall’s galleries will be on the main floor, with the third, presenting Canada’s history from 1914 to the present, on an overlooking mezzanine. The three galleries will be connected by a central hub and a circular walkway, representing the “Great Kettle” at Chaudière Falls, Cardinal said.
The Ottawa River is also symbolically represented in the large flowing space of the mezzanine, he said. “To me, this is a sacred site for 10,000 years. This was always the centre, this was always the capital, for thousands of years.”
The hall’s design, said museum president and chief executive Mark O’Neill, will reflect “the incredible size and grandeur of the country itself, in keeping with (Cardinal’s) original vision.”
Choosing which stories to include was difficult, O’Neill said. Ultimately they were selected by the museum’s curators and historians, with input from expert advisory panels.
The decisions were also guided by ideas submitted by more than 24,000 Canadians, O’Neill said. “This is truly an exhibition developed by Canadians for Canadians.”
People and events are subject to interpretation, O’Neill said. “One person’s hero can be another person’s villain — one’s triumph, another’s tragedy. We won’t draw conclusions for our visitors, but instead will present the facts through multiple viewpoints and voices.”
Nearly all of the 1,800 artifacts that will appear in the hall have been selected, said David Morrison, the museum’s director of research.
They include items rarely if ever displayed in the past, such as the handgun used to assassinate Thomas D’Arcy McGee in 1868 and the handcuffs worn by Louis Riel as he ascended the scaffold in 1885.
Some artifacts are on long-term loan, such as Four Kings, portraits of four indigenous leaders who travelled to England in the early 1700s, which are in the collection of Library and Archives Canada. “They’re really beautiful,” Morrison said. “They’re going to be stellar performers.”