Pinesi Waaji Waawaabadahiwewigamik ashij lniniwag Ooshjikewinan

A place where things made by the people are shown

The Thunder Bay Art Gallery is under construction. The gallery is a growing cultural anchor for Northwestern Ontario. By making its new home at Prince Arthur‘s Landing on Lake Superior, it goes beyond exhibition and education to participate in reclaiming an inclusive, living waterfront for the people of Thunder Bay. The site is beautiful yet wounded. Once a prominent ship-yard and industrial zone, it enjoys broad water access and sublime views of Nanabijou (The Sleeping Giant), but suffers from decades of contamination and estrangement from the daily lives of the public. Ongoing landscape design and revivification of the water’s edge is therefore tightly integrated with the organization and presence of the Gallery. The building is equal parts museum, community center, social hub, and a healing bond between peoples and ancient cultural landscape.

Indigenous Engagement

By mandate, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery maintains a particular, though not limited, focus on contemporary artwork of Canadian Aboriginal and Northwestern Ontario artists. Therefore, a consultation workshop with stakeholders from local indigenous communities, including elders and artists, preceded schematic design. The insights from this gathering provided guidance that is folded into the siting, organization, and form of the building. Prominent concerns included a strong symbolic orientation to the cardinal axes, curvilinear form, and the integration of a sacred Ojibway re-creation story in which the Earth is reborn after a punishing flood upon the back of a turtle’s shell. The Turtle Narrative, as interpreted by Ryan Gorrie, the team’s Indigenous Design Advisor, emphasizes a dual nature. As with land to water, so with body to spirit, and the Turtle’s passage represents time and the creation of culture through the telling of stories.

Program Organization

Oriented roughly north to south, the building collects and presents the water’s edge as a renewed public space. From the west, the bulk of the building is obscured by a landform berm and a stand of planted native trees. Through the berm, visitors enter an ovoid cleft that focuses upon a view through the lobby to the lake. The ground floor, which connects to a waterfront trail, is programmed with a lobby, café, gift shop, lecture hall, classrooms, and administrative offices, all of which overlook a revitalized wetland and shoreline. Climbing the lobby stair, itself a day-lit place to gather and rest, the entire eastern façade opens onto panoramic views of Lake Superior and Nanabijou (The Sleeping Giant). This long, light flooded hall is wide enough to accommodate large public events and functions. The three main galleries are carefully proportioned to be both flexible and intimate. Gallery three bends and gestures to the east, acknowledging the primacy of this cardinal direction. A prow window at its north-east end overlooks the Spirit Garden.

Connectedness & Form

The Thunder Bay Art Gallery fosters an experience of connectedness to history, culture, and landscape. Spaces within are fluid and adaptable, responding to and supporting a diverse community and program. The building form is inflected with sculptural character to resonate with this sense of fluidity, lived experience, and the passage of time.

Light Drawing / Turtle Narrative

"Long after turtle became Turtle island and Nanaboosho laid down for the last time, the spirits of both are very much alive.

The emergence of the Turtle from the water to form the Gallery creates a powerful narrative and connection to culture.

Pulling from the water into the land and leaving traces of its presence the turtle spirit visits the site carving the gallery with movement and light.

The gallery resides on the shore, left by Turtle to house great collections and to continue telling stories of culture, tradition, and thought.

The form of the gallery is organic in nature, part building part animal and part landform. We find ourselves connected to the building, drawn to it, protected by it and enriched by its contents..."

Ryan Gorrie, Architect MAA, MRAIC

Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek / Sand Point First Nation on Lake Nipigon

Location

Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

Size

3,480 sq m / 37,500 sq ft

Client

Thunder Bay Art Gallery

Certifications

CaGBC Zero Carbon Building Design

Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification - Gold Certified

Recognition

2019 Canadian Architect Award of Merit

Credits

Architect: Patkau Architects Inc. / Brook McIlroy Architects
Project team: John Patkau, Patricia Patkau, David Shone, Roy Cloutier, Heba Maleki, Roberto Vinante, Katy Young, Nicole Sylvia, Morgan Kerber

Consultants
Indigenous Design Advisor: Ryan Gorrie/Brook McIlroy

Construction Administration: Serino Architects

Landscape: Janet Rosenberg & Studio

Structural: Blackwell Structural Engineers
Mechanical / Electrical: Smith + Andersen
Lighting: AES Engineering
Civil: Hatch

Code: Jensen Hughes
Building Envelope: WSP
Acoustics: RWDI
LEED & Energy: RWDI

Commissioning: CFMS Consulting
Wayfinding: Entro
Geotechnical: EXP

Construction Manager
Tom Jones Corporation

Images
Serino Architects (1, 5-10)

Brook McIlroy Architects (2-4)

Patkau Architects Inc. (11 - 14)
Ryan Gorrie (15)