The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia is re-opening on Thursday after an 18-month closure to complete seismic upgrades to its Great Hall.
It kicks off a year-long celebration of the museum’s 75th anniversary that also includes updated interpretations and new displays.
Staff say visitors will notice some big changes alongside familiar faces.
“The Great Hall itself, that had to be completely rebuilt for earthquake standards, will look very much the same because it is such an architectural icon of Canada,” said Karen Duffek, the curator of contemporary visual arts and Pacific Northwest at the MOA. “Though there are some improvements with the quality of the glass, things like that.”
The current Museum of Anthropology building, designed by famed Vancouver architect Arthur Erickson, opened in 1976. However, a survey in 2017 found its Great Hall to be at risk of collapse during an earthquake. That prompted work on a seismic facsimile of the original design, begun in 2021.
Duffek says the idea was to have the Great Hall be able to move around like a waterbed in case of a large seismic event.
“What an engineering feat really, to first of all, have to take down that entire structure of the Great Hall, which is so renowned, that post-and-beam architecture of concrete and the huge glass panels. All that had to be taken right down and then a big pit was dug, in which these earthquake stabilizer units were placed,” she said.
“So, the floor that was then rebuilt on those stabilizer units is separated from the rest of the museum building by a gap that we don’t see because it’s covered by a floor. But it allows the Great Hall as a unit to move almost in a waterbed-like way if there is a giant earthquake.”
Other upgrades include skylights and other aspects of the structure of the museum.
Duffek says staff used the 18-month closure to revitalize and reinterpret the museum’s Indigenous collection.
“We took that opportunity to work together with a fabulous Indigenous advisory committee who really challenged us to be bold and to be much visible in terms of diverse Indigenous voices being presented,” she said.
“So, I think that the visitors will see amazing, monumental sculptures still and bowls and other kinds of carvings and baskets and weavings accompanied by contemporary Indigenous voices that really point to how meaningful these things are to them today, how connected they are to these belongings that are so important in the museum space, but their meanings and their connections extend [far] beyond the balls of the museum.”
Along with the reopening, the MOA is presenting two brand-new exhibitions: In Pursuit of Venus (Infected) and To Be Seen, To Be Heard: First Nations in Public Spaces, 1900–1965.
The museum will reopen at 5:00 p.m. on June 13 with free admission all evening. June 15 marks the 100th anniversary of architect Arthur Erickson’s birth. The MOA is marking that occasion with half-price admission and special programming.