GORGEOUS ART GALLERY
Polygon in North Vancouver opens to public
Darrell Mussatto was elected in 1993 to council in the City of North Vancouver. The rookie politician’s first appointment was on the cultural committee that oversaw Presentation House and its museum, art gallery and theatre.
At the time, all three venues operated out of a ramshackle building on Chesterfield Avenue a few blocks up the steep hill from the waterfront. Starting out as a girls’ school in 1902, it later became the home of North Van’s city hall and police headquarters. It was never designed as a cultural centre.
Mussatto, who was born and raised on the North Shore, served on council for a dozen years before running for mayor, a post the popular politician has held for the past 12 years. During that time, he never wavered in his commitment to finding a new home for Presentation House Gallery.
“I’ve been the biggest supporter of the gallery,” Mussatto insisted. “It’s been my baby for 24 years.”
Today, a new stand-alone art gallery for the city of North Vancouver opens to the public. Now called the Polygon Gallery, the sparkling new two-storey building designed by Patkau Architects at the foot of Lonsdale is part of a renewal of the surrounding waterfront neighbourhood.
The new gallery looks like a silvery horizontal dash by the water. The unique cladding, believed to be used for the first time as the skin of an art gallery, is made from the same metal grating used for nonslip surfaces in places such as gangways at marinas. The area’s industrial past is also echoed in the sawtooth roof that provides natural light to the top-floor gallery spaces.
Mussatto was aware of the importance of the site. He wanted to make sure he got it exactly right.
“You have to be very careful what you put in these great public spaces,” he said.
“Arguably, it is the best in the city and one of the best in the Lower Mainland. You want to make sure you don’t screw it up.”
Over the years, it wasn’t always smooth sailing for the gallery. In 2007, a developer proposed a 40-storey tower with an art gallery at the base in almost exactly the spot where the Polygon Gallery is located. That proposal didn’t last long. It was met with such “significant” public opposition, as Mussatto said, that council backed off. The society running the art gallery looked at other options — including the possibility of leaving North Vancouver to move across the inlet to Vancouver.
Mussatto didn’t want the city to lose one of its cultural gems.
The gallery identified the site next to Seaspan on city-leased property and won over the city with a plan for an iconic building that hadn’t yet been designed.
“Because they had such a great history of amazing shows and amazing programming, it was an example of great programming in search of a great building,” Mussatto said.
Reid Shier, director and curator of the Polygon, was hired in 2006 after the energy to find a new home stalled.
“Even as early as 1992, the driving ambition, and one of the first things written down in the first facility committee minutes, was for an architecturally significant building at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue,” he said during a media tour of the new gallery Tuesday.
“Where we are now in was the ambition and dream of all the people who came before me for many years. I thought it would take a few years — it took me 11.”
A key part of the effort to build a new gallery took place in 2014 when businessman and philanthropist Michael Audain and Polygon Homes kick-started the fundraising campaign with a $4-million donation.
“In exchange for the gift, we offered a name change,” Shier said.
He said the gallery wanted a new name to end the confusion between Presentation House Gallery and Presentation House Theatre.
“With that lead gift, we’re very happy to take on the Polygon Gallery as our new name.”
John Patkau, principal of Patkau Architects, said the building has floor-to-ceiling glass walls on three sides on the ground floor that lets people see through across Burrard Inlet to downtown Vancouver.
The main exhibition spaces of the gallery are on the second floor.
“The idea is that the ground floor is maximally transparent and the upper floor is an opaque volume — that worked out to be a primary driver of the design,” he said.
Upstairs, three galleries are designed for exhibiting art only. The fourth is a multi-purpose room that can show art and be rented for weddings and cocktail parties. It has fully retractable windows facing south.
“When you do that (retract the windows), you have this amazing room connected to the waterfront,” he said.
“I’m sure it will become a popular venue for weddings in the summer because of the phenomenal situation it has overlooking the water.”
The inaugural exhibition at the Polygon is N. Vancouver. It features work by and about North Vancouver and includes newly commissioned works by more than 15 artists. The Polygon’s mandate is to focus on photography and media-based art.