Audain Art Museum
A Patkau-designed gallery raised above the forest floor, holding British Columbian art from masks to Carr.
The Audain Art Museum opened in March 2016 to house the collection given by the Vancouver property developer Michael Audain and his wife Yoshiko Karasawa. Its subject is the art of British Columbia, and the permanent display runs from nineteenth-century Northwest Coast masks through Emily Carr and the photoconceptual work of the Vancouver School to contemporary Indigenous artists such as Robert Davidson and Brian Jungen. The holding of Carr paintings is among the largest anywhere.
Patkau Architects placed the building on a narrow wooded site in a floodplain between Whistler Village and Blackcomb, lifting the long dark-clad volume on columns so that meltwater and snow can pass beneath it. Visitors climb a covered ramp to enter, and a glazed break partway along the plan opens a view into the surrounding cedars and firs. Alongside the permanent galleries, a large temporary exhibition space carries several changing shows a year, often touring surveys of Canadian artists.
Highlights
- Northwest Coast masks from the nineteenth century
- One of the largest collections of Emily Carr paintings
- Patkau Architects' building raised on columns above the floodplain
- Photoconceptual work by the Vancouver School
