Patkau Architects received a 2021 AIA Architecture Award for the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver. The project is the rebirth of an independent photography and media institution that has served North Vancouver’s creative community for nearly 40 years.

2021 ARCHITECTURE AWARD RECIPIENT, POLYGON GALLERY, NORTH VANCOUVER, BC, PATKAU ARCHITECTS via aia.org
The 2021 Architecture program celebrates the best contemporary architecture regardless of budget, size, style, or type. Patkau Architects is one of 10 recipients to receive an award, and the only project completed by a Canadian architectural practice.

The gallery, called Presentation House Gallery when it began in the 1970s, was initially located in a community center inside an early-1900s all-girls school. The new gallery’s central mass floats above the ground plane, providing access to a new public space and a sweeping view of Vancouver’s skyline across the inlet. It is marked with a sawtooth profile clad in mirrored stainless steel sitting beneath expanded aluminum decking.
PLAZA WITH FOUNTAIN, MAIN ENTRANCE, EAST FACADE via aia.org
?The facade’s materials play off one another, lending a sense of mass and depth that shifts with differing sunlight conditions and the evening atmosphere. The facade functions as the gallery’s uniform voice, just bold enough to define its place on the waterfront without contributing to any visual noise,? says the American Institute of Architects.

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