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Place des Arts
By : Moriyama Teshima Architects & Bélanger Salach Architecture
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 16th edition
Discipline : Architecture
Categories : Public Building / Cultural Building : Gold Certification
Categories : Special Award / Architecture + Collaboration : Platinum Winner
Place des Arts (PdA) is a joint venture project between Toronto-based Moriyama Teshima Architects (MTA) and Bélanger Salach Architecture (BSA). The first multidisciplinary art centre of its kind in Northern Ontario, this cultural facility is an influential site of excellence for Sudbury focused on French-Canadian culture and community empowerment.
In 2008, the Summit of La Francophonie of Greater Sudbury identified the creation of a unifying cultural hub as an urgent priority. This envisioned civic space was one that could provide a special venue for the resident population and visitors alike to convene, share, and bond. The seven contributing organizations of Regroupement des Organismes Culturels de Sudbury (ROCS) each brought forth their own unique standpoint as to how the desired arts facility should be formed. It was important that all member organizations were heard, to best represent their respective programs and activities as they merged into this new dynamic space.
The goal of this community-based project was to foster a new platform for creativity and collaboration as well as to spark a new era promoting Francophone arts and culture in Sudbury and Northern Ontario. Support from federal, provincial, and municipal funding agencies was based on the strength that the facility would also provide much-needed arts and cultural space for other community organizations such as Indigenous performance troupes. The project also aligns well with the first phases of the Greater Sudbury Downtown Revitalization Master Plan.
A collaborative endeavour on all fronts, MTA and BSA jointly served as the lead design architects for this project. Through sound and informed leadership, the two firms were together able to establish consensus amongst the seven strong voices to achieve a flexible design that provides services for a wide variety of activities and uses, while contributing to the surrounding urban context. The design of PdA engages with the street and sidewalk level to invite pedestrians into the facility, while reaching out to the surrounding neighbourhood with distinct, expressive façades. Each face of the building responds to and augments the character of its respective abutting cityscape, with calculated choices of materiality, pattern, and texture.
The material selection of PdA is an expression of its location. The rocky outcroppings in the Sudbury Basin are composed of three different rock types, each recording a unique ancient environment; tan-weathering hard sandstones of the Canadian Shield, dark ridges of igneous rock, and pebble-rich layers of sandstone. The rough masonry at the base of the Place des Arts building echoes the broken rock faces and textured mine shafts of the region. The oxidized stone outcroppings that signaled the presence of ore deposits and the rusted old mine structures that dot the landscape live on in the patina of the corten cladding of the building’s exterior. Progressive stages of the corten façade cladding during the natural weathering process means that the patina will be in a constant state of change, neither old nor new. The narrative attached to the selection of each material provides the backdrop for the storyline to be retold to future generations. The building itself serves as the vessel to hold these collective memories.
Collaboration
