The Canadian Museum for Human Rights: "Failed Memorial and White Elephant"?

In an article for The Walrus, Adele Weder examines Antoine Predock's (who was recently made a National Academy Academician) Canadian Museum for Human Rights: a "colossal, twelve-storey mountain of concrete and stone, 120,000 square feet of tempered glass, and 260,000 square feet of floor space." Early advocates of the museum "felt that Winnipeg was ripe for such a statement piece," just as Bilbao had been for the Guggenheim. Welder's explorations are clear and concise, finding all sorts "of paradoxes swirling around the Museum for Human Rights." Noting that "it’s definitely a kick-ass building, with its aggressive outer form, jagged paths inside, big black slabs of basalt, thick sheets of glass, and the huge metal girders that hold it all together," Weder argues that it's position as a "failed memorial and white elephant" may be it's eventual undoing.

Read the article in full here.

Museum Opening. Image © Aaron Cohen/CMHR-MCDP
About this author
Cite: James Taylor-Foster. "The Canadian Museum for Human Rights: "Failed Memorial and White Elephant"?" 10 Nov 2014. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/565612/the-canadian-museum-for-human-rights-failed-memorial-and-white-elephant> ISSN 0719-8884

You've started following your first account!

Did you know?

You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.