Museum of Anthropology at UBC
Arthur Erickson's concrete and glass museum of Northwest Coast and world arts on the UBC campus.
The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia holds about 50,000 ethnographic objects and a large archaeological collection, with a particular concentration of material from the First Nations of the Northwest Coast. The museum grew out of teaching collections assembled from 1947 and moved in 1976 into a purpose-built structure on the cliff edge at Point Grey. Research, teaching and collaborative work with originating communities sit alongside the public galleries, and Indigenous partners are involved in interpretation, care and display decisions.
Arthur Erickson designed the building as a sequence of post-and-beam concrete frames rising towards a glass-walled Great Hall, echoing the structural logic of Northwest Coast plank houses and framing views of the mountains beyond. Monumental house posts, feast dishes and canoes stand in the hall, while the Multiversity Galleries present thousands of items in visible storage with drawers open to visitors. Bill Reid's yellow cedar sculpture The Raven and the First Men occupies its own rotunda. The museum reopened in June 2024 after seismic upgrading work.
Highlights
- Great Hall of Northwest Coast house posts, canoes and totem poles
- Bill Reid's sculpture The Raven and the First Men
- Multiversity Galleries with visible storage and open drawers
- Koerner European Ceramics Gallery and outdoor Haida houses
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