By Ruth Sylvestre
A glass tower, the most visible addition to the soon-to-be renovated Canadian Museum of Nature, has become the focus of some disagreement.
“I like the glass,” says Ivo Valentik, who teaches architecture part-time at Algonquin College. “They’re restoring the tower in a modern context,” he says. His concern is that it might be “too dated” — in a couple decades the design may be a style of the past.
“Mixing the past with the present is not innovation, it’s destruction of the past,” says Amal Jamal, 39, who lives down the street from the museum.
“It’s like a human body with an animal head,” she says. “We have a lot of glass here in Canada. It’s boring.”
The building opened in 1912 as the Victoria Memorial Museum. It was the first building in Canada designed to be a national museum. The structure included a tall stone entrance tower which proved too heavy for the ground beneath it, causing the structure to sink into the earth.
“It sits on a bed of leda clay, which is like Jell-O,” says Barry Padolsky, the architect responsible for the renovation.
Dubbed “the lantern,” the lightweight glass and steel tower will replace the top half of the original tower that had to be demolished to stop the building from sinking.
The square lantern will also give the building a continuous stairwell from the second to the fourth floors — something it’s never had.
The new tower will encase criss-crossing stairs, making it much simpler for visitors to move between floors.
At a meeting about the museum early this month, area resident Robert Smith, 59, questioned the architects on the necessity of the glass tower.
“It’s going to take a lot away from the building,” he said. “You are getting very little function for that. How much taxpayer’s money is it going to cost?” he asked to applause from the group of about 200 in attendance. “You’re ruining the north face of the building.”
Maureen Dougan, vice-president of the museum, responded that the lantern will be six per cent of their $94-million budget, explaining that upgrading the mechanical and electrical systems and reinforcing the building are what will cost taxpayers the most.
“My theory with the lantern, is people will appreciate the old even more,” says Bruce Kuwabara, who designed the two-storey addition.
“One of our goals is to put our museum on the map with the U.S. natural history museum,” he says.
“People know this as ‘the castle.’ We want people to know this as the Canadian Museum of Nature. We want people to hang around this building.”
An interior wall will allow the museum to properly control temperature and humidity levels while an inserted steel “skeleton” within the walls will meet building code requirements for earthquake protection.
“Introducing the structural reinforcement is a huge challenge,” says Padolsky. “It’s a heritage building. We can’t just tear it apart.”
Several safety exits and washrooms will be added, as well as two oversized elevators. New landscaping outside the museum will include an amphitheatre on the west side of the building.
“I’ve been coming here since I was a teenager,” says David Jeanes, 55. “It’s good to see that it’s finally getting the investment it needs to give it a good future.”