Post by Jari on Apr 15, 2005 12:48:18 GMT -5
$100M for rights museum
High-tech design wins competition
Fri Apr 15 2005
By Paul Samyn and David O'Brien
OTTAWA -- The federal government will announce today it is now prepared to contribute $100 million for the capital costs of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the Free Press has learned.
The federal funding, which is key to making the dream of Winnipeg's Asper family a reality, will also come with an announcement that New Mexico architect Antoine Predock has won the international design competition for the signature structure to be built at The Forks.
Predock's design is a complicated architectural and engineering marvel that features a tower rising 100 metres into the sky, nearly as tall as the highrises at Portage and Main.
Some people have had a hard time understanding his unusual design, which is actually carved into the earth before rising on a stone base and dissolving into an abstract array of glass, topped by a soaring spire.
Predock has called it "a symbolic apparition of ice, clouds and stone."
The full design will be unveiled today at 10:30 a.m. in a gala announcement at the Centennial Concert Hall before an estimated 1,000 people. The public is welcome to attend. Senior federal sources say the offer of a further $70 million in federal funding -- which comes on top of $30 million Ottawa has already pledged -- will be tied to the project meeting certain fundraising targets.
"Ottawa is getting closer to the capital (required) with strings attached to make this work," said one source.
Among those strings will be certain conditions regarding the governance model for the museum.
"There is lots of fundraising still required by everyone including the private sector."
The new museum would be part of a downtown renaissance that includes an $80-million project detailed yesterday by clothing manufacturer Peter Nygard and developer Arni Thorsteinson. They plan to transform a large section of the East Exchange District with covered shopping malls, new office space and hundreds of residential units.
A host of recent projects are fuelling a rebirth in the city's core. These include the MTS Centre, expansions by Red River College and the University of Winnipeg, a new Manitoba Hydro office tower, construction of the new Millennium Library, and a $25-million office building for the Credit Union Central of Manitoba. Family patriarch Israel Asper's vision of a human-rights museum comes with a price tag now nearing $300 million, which initially called for Ottawa to provide some $12 million in annual operating funding.
The demand for ongoing operating funding was always a non-starter for the federal government. However, as the Free Press reported last month, Ottawa believes it has found a possible solution by having the Aspers broaden the mandate of the museum to become what is envisaged as an international think-tank on human rights consistent with Prime Minister Paul Martin's ambition of having Canada play a bigger role on the world stage.
Another senior political source said by broadening the mandate, the museum will be able to draw on federal programming dollars from other departments to help cover its bottom line.
Today's announcement, to be made by Treasury Board President Reg AlGo Jets Go, caps a remarkable year of twists and turns as Asper's family waged a campaign both publicly and privately to lever an additional $70 million from the Martin Liberals.
Project champion
There was no shortage of harsh words back and forth as project champion Gail Asper accused the Liberals of breaking a promise first made by Jean Chrétien as prime minister that Ottawa's $30 million would be an initial down payment on a federal commitment to fund 50 per cent of the project's total costs.
The funding announcement is also another big political win for AlGo Jets Go (Winnipeg South) and comes just a year after he fought to bring the headquarters of Canada's new Public Health Agency to Winnipeg's federal disease lab.
To date, Ottawa has committed $27 million in capital funding plus $2.3 million for developmental costs. Ottawa also paid $700,000 for a feasibility study. Both the province and city hall have each pledged $20 million.
Meanwhile, if all the funding falls into place and assuming an election doesn't throw a wrench into the Aspers' plans, the project could be finished in about five years, according to Gail Asper, chairwoman of the group building the museum. Predock has developed an international reputation for the wide range of museums, universities, performing arts centres, hotels, libraries and science centres he has built around the world.
One magazine article referred to him as a "desert rat" because the dry, barren expanse and big sky of New Mexico and its aboriginal heritage have had a decisive influence on his work over the years.
"Lessons learned in the American southwest apply anywhere in the world," Predock says on his website, predock.com. "My 'regionalism' is portable."
His design for Winnipeg seems to have incorporated some of those elements, while respecting that the city is a land of ice and snow for a good part of the year.
The concepts of earth, sky, nature, water, light and aboriginal themes are all incorporated.
Visitors will enter the building between symbolic roots of protective stone arms. Those roots, Predock said in an earlier presentation, will also create a framework for ceremonial outdoor events.
The upper portion of the museum is encased in a complicated and abstract array of glass.
In Predock's poetic language, the glass is described as "the ephemeral wings of a white dove (embracing) a mythic stone mountain... in the creation of a unifying and timeless landmark for all nations and cultures of the world."
Smith Carter Architects and Engineers of Winnipeg won a secondary competition to work with Predock on the design.
High-tech design wins competition
Fri Apr 15 2005
By Paul Samyn and David O'Brien
OTTAWA -- The federal government will announce today it is now prepared to contribute $100 million for the capital costs of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the Free Press has learned.
The federal funding, which is key to making the dream of Winnipeg's Asper family a reality, will also come with an announcement that New Mexico architect Antoine Predock has won the international design competition for the signature structure to be built at The Forks.
Predock's design is a complicated architectural and engineering marvel that features a tower rising 100 metres into the sky, nearly as tall as the highrises at Portage and Main.
Some people have had a hard time understanding his unusual design, which is actually carved into the earth before rising on a stone base and dissolving into an abstract array of glass, topped by a soaring spire.
Predock has called it "a symbolic apparition of ice, clouds and stone."
The full design will be unveiled today at 10:30 a.m. in a gala announcement at the Centennial Concert Hall before an estimated 1,000 people. The public is welcome to attend. Senior federal sources say the offer of a further $70 million in federal funding -- which comes on top of $30 million Ottawa has already pledged -- will be tied to the project meeting certain fundraising targets.
"Ottawa is getting closer to the capital (required) with strings attached to make this work," said one source.
Among those strings will be certain conditions regarding the governance model for the museum.
"There is lots of fundraising still required by everyone including the private sector."
The new museum would be part of a downtown renaissance that includes an $80-million project detailed yesterday by clothing manufacturer Peter Nygard and developer Arni Thorsteinson. They plan to transform a large section of the East Exchange District with covered shopping malls, new office space and hundreds of residential units.
A host of recent projects are fuelling a rebirth in the city's core. These include the MTS Centre, expansions by Red River College and the University of Winnipeg, a new Manitoba Hydro office tower, construction of the new Millennium Library, and a $25-million office building for the Credit Union Central of Manitoba. Family patriarch Israel Asper's vision of a human-rights museum comes with a price tag now nearing $300 million, which initially called for Ottawa to provide some $12 million in annual operating funding.
The demand for ongoing operating funding was always a non-starter for the federal government. However, as the Free Press reported last month, Ottawa believes it has found a possible solution by having the Aspers broaden the mandate of the museum to become what is envisaged as an international think-tank on human rights consistent with Prime Minister Paul Martin's ambition of having Canada play a bigger role on the world stage.
Another senior political source said by broadening the mandate, the museum will be able to draw on federal programming dollars from other departments to help cover its bottom line.
Today's announcement, to be made by Treasury Board President Reg AlGo Jets Go, caps a remarkable year of twists and turns as Asper's family waged a campaign both publicly and privately to lever an additional $70 million from the Martin Liberals.
Project champion
There was no shortage of harsh words back and forth as project champion Gail Asper accused the Liberals of breaking a promise first made by Jean Chrétien as prime minister that Ottawa's $30 million would be an initial down payment on a federal commitment to fund 50 per cent of the project's total costs.
The funding announcement is also another big political win for AlGo Jets Go (Winnipeg South) and comes just a year after he fought to bring the headquarters of Canada's new Public Health Agency to Winnipeg's federal disease lab.
To date, Ottawa has committed $27 million in capital funding plus $2.3 million for developmental costs. Ottawa also paid $700,000 for a feasibility study. Both the province and city hall have each pledged $20 million.
Meanwhile, if all the funding falls into place and assuming an election doesn't throw a wrench into the Aspers' plans, the project could be finished in about five years, according to Gail Asper, chairwoman of the group building the museum. Predock has developed an international reputation for the wide range of museums, universities, performing arts centres, hotels, libraries and science centres he has built around the world.
One magazine article referred to him as a "desert rat" because the dry, barren expanse and big sky of New Mexico and its aboriginal heritage have had a decisive influence on his work over the years.
"Lessons learned in the American southwest apply anywhere in the world," Predock says on his website, predock.com. "My 'regionalism' is portable."
His design for Winnipeg seems to have incorporated some of those elements, while respecting that the city is a land of ice and snow for a good part of the year.
The concepts of earth, sky, nature, water, light and aboriginal themes are all incorporated.
Visitors will enter the building between symbolic roots of protective stone arms. Those roots, Predock said in an earlier presentation, will also create a framework for ceremonial outdoor events.
The upper portion of the museum is encased in a complicated and abstract array of glass.
In Predock's poetic language, the glass is described as "the ephemeral wings of a white dove (embracing) a mythic stone mountain... in the creation of a unifying and timeless landmark for all nations and cultures of the world."
Smith Carter Architects and Engineers of Winnipeg won a secondary competition to work with Predock on the design.