Metro Vancouver’s newest art museum is set to have its grand opening at Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) Burnaby campus next month.
The Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum, which SFU describes as a cultural hub 24 years in the making, will open to students, faculty, and the public on Saturday, Sept. 20.
Art lovers can find the university’s first purpose-built art museum in the heart of SFU Burnaby, right next to the main bus loop and the future Burnaby Mountain gondola terminal.
Artistic rendering of the Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum at SFU Burnaby. (Hariri Pontarini Architects/SFU)
“In part inspired by the intelligence of trees and their underground networks of communication and support, the Gibson is a space where art and learning come together to create a vibrant canopy of activity supported by deep connections,” said Kimberly Phillips, director of the Gibson, in a release.
The museum’s name recognizes an unspecified major donation made by Marianne Gibson and the late Edward Gibson, who joined SFU as a charter faculty member in 1965 and was director of SFU Gallery between 1986 and 1997.
The Gibson was built with a design by Hariri Pontarini Architects that was chosen in a competition. The project’s previously stated total budget was about $26.3 million, and construction took 18 months to complete.
Artistic rendering of the Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum at SFU Burnaby. (Hariri Pontarini Architects/SFU)
The facility will have over 12,000 sq ft of free exhibition and programming space, consolidating the former SFU Galleries and improving access to the university’s collection of 5,800 modern and contemporary artworks.
The Gibson has 15-foot-high ceilings made from B.C.-sourced mass timber beams. The facility is fully electric and LEED Gold certified, with flexible programming space and two entrances that were built to create a sense of natural flow to the museum.
Artistic rendering of the Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum at SFU Burnaby. (Hariri Pontarini Architects/SFU)
Guests can look forward to The Gibson’s inaugural exhibition, Edge Effects, also opening on Sept. 20.
The art exhibit is inspired by the ecological term of the same name, which describes the one-of-a-kind meeting of two unique ecological communities.
Edge Effects will showcase new commissioned works by Cindy Mochizuki, Lorna Brown, Elisa Ferrari and more. There will also be works by artists like Liz Magor that have never been exhibited in Canada before.
Address: 8888 University Dr. W., Burnaby
With files from Kenneth Chan