PROJECT Qaumajuq, Winnipeg, Manitoba
ARCHITECTS Michael Maltzan Architecture (Design Architect) with Cibinel Architecture (Associate Architect)
PHOTOS Lindsey Reid
A billowing white building, like an icy cloud, has descended on the Prairie landscape. Mooring itself to an urban site, it reflects the long, glancing sunlight of the Prairie while also catching another kind of light: the midnight sun of Canada?s North.
In architect Michael Maltzan?s words, the North?s cultural and physical geography is one of ?ineffable qualities [?] where the water shimmers away and melds with the sky.? For Maltzan, that geography enjoys a specific ?quality of light [?] that animates all the forms there.?
This focus on light is also captured by the name of the new building: Qaumajuq, Inuktitut for ?it is bright, it is lit.? This name was chosen by a circle of Elders and advisors, as part of a broader selection of Indigenous names for the institution and its component elements?including an Ojibway name for the Winnipeg Art Gallery itself, which sits adjacent. It?s just one of the ways that Qaumajuq?s impact ripples beyond its architecture. The architecture itself makes a memorable impact. At night, light shines through the glass wall of the double-height entry area. A stone wall hangs like a curtain above, as though lifted up to let the museum glow, not unlike the light of a qulliq: a seal oil lamp. The undulating façade also suggests the curtains of aurora borealis which sweep across the nort...