This thesis project, a Museum of Contemporary Architecture in Vancouver, offers solu
tions to architectural design problems resulting from the placement of an institutional use, the
museum, within the social and physical framework of the city. The emphasis of this project is to
integrate two polar opposites. On one hand resides the bureaucratic elite of a cultural institution:
the curatorial machinery of contemporary architecture. On the other hand are the contradictory
forces of the city: the wandering of the diverse population through the site, the intrusion of other
uses within the body of the building, and the shifting of museum uses onto adjacent
noninstitutional structures.
The method of research has been through a three month iterative process of reading, draw
ing and modelling, following consultation with the thesis committee. Represented here is the
third version of the project, in it’s most resolved form. For a record of the thesis preparation,
please see the design study, directed by Professor Sherry McKay, held in the Architecture Read
ing Room.
The conclusions of this thesis project resulted from aggressive reworkings. First, the uses
of the building were interrogated and then condensed into their simplest form. This involved
deleting most of the traditional museum functions. Libraries and bookstores, meeting rooms and
cafes and staff offices were transplanted offsite or given away to other businesses. This allowed
a new underground film room and night club to intrude in the basement, and an estranged office
and residence to hover over the small exhibition spaces. Second, the massing of these uses
needed separate identities. Finally, out of a desire for an open urban expression, the building
mass was reduced further to introduce empty floors between uses, and a two meter setback
between the building and the next structure on the block. Light and air, infiltrating these intersti
tial spaces of the design, emanated towards the street. A concrete structure holds this composi
tion together, with steel struts bracing against earthquake forces. A double row of street trees
filter the resultant vision, layering the building in the urban context.
The subject of this thesis was prompted by a comment by Thom Mayne’s during his visit
to UBC in 1993. Mr. Mayne felt that the traditional scope of contemporary architecture could be
improved, especially when contrasted to the breadth of issues in the fine arts.
This project helped me to investigate the architectural possibilities of institutional expres
sion in the urban core.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/5266 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Erickson, Gary G. |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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