The Retirees' Newsletter

The Retirees's Association ( Faculty, Librarian, Administrator), University of Windsor, Windsor, Ont. Canada

Vol X I, No. 2, June 2001

Work in Progress

by

Lois K. Smedick

When Datta Pillay asked me for a brief account of my experience with the building of new Art Gallery of Windsor, I pondered how to distill more than three years' involvement into a few paragraphs. What else but the (former) professor's tactic of subdividing what is really a continuum into discrete and memorable chunks? So here it is: the devising of a functional program, the refining of a conceptual design, and the actual construction.

In 1997-98 staff and volunteers of the AGW worked with consultants on a vision of what the Gallery restored to its former premises in mid-block on Pitt Street might look like. Restoration of an already twice retrofitted building from brewery warehouse to art gallery in the mid '70's, to interim Casino in the early '90s was not to be, but we didn't know that yet. So we tried to dream how best to utilize the space and to upgrade the premises to present-day museum standards, all within the strictly limited budget from the "OCC" ( Ontario Casino Corporation) that was part of the Art Gallery's recompense for allowing its building to be fitted up and used for some four years to introduce commercial casino gambling in Ontario. The AGW's freedom of movement in this controversial decision was strictly limited as well, by the pressing needs of its aging building on the one hand, and the parlous state of the Windsor economy on the other, making cooperation with the Province on a commercial and construction enterprise attractive to the AGW's volunteer Board. The functional program for an eventual rebuilding was perhaps most useful in focusing minds on the elements considered necessary in an upgraded art gallery, since the details were subject to much modification once actual design began.

In early '99, designing began in earnest after the decision had been made not to restore the brewery warehouse/former art gallery, but to erect a new building positioned on the portion of the city block that AGW unequivocally owned, allowing the city to develop commercially the other end of the valuable river front block. This history of this period of negotiations is written in the records of City Council. As feathers flew it seemed hard for some to remember that the AGW had been a welcome partner just a few years earlier, when needed for the provincial experiment in commercial gaming and municipal plans for boosting the local economy. But all's well that ends well.

The architects' orientation and design of the new Art Gallery of Windsor were intended to take full advantage of the premium site by routing visitors through the Gallery toward the river view, and harmonizing a gallery's need for "black box" exhibition and storage spaces with the public's pleasure in natural light and viewing points over the urban landscape. Hence the middle "boat" effect, with glass tips, flanked by stone-encased interior spaces. A good portion of art gallery space must be "back of house"-not just for storage of the permanent collection, but also for workshops where art is prepared for exhibition, as well as space for the complex mechanicals needed to ensure proper climate control for fragile art works. The architects situated this blankest facade on the narrowest street and created a back door for receiving that was angled away from the dramatic entrance beside the city's landscaped parkland in mid-block. The parkland is to be preserved as a visual ( or vision) corridor between the river front and the projected arena development to the south.

Design refinement, and the inevitable budget trimming, occupied the better part of a year between mid-1999 and mid-2000, as construction got under way on a fast track. As those who have experienced this phase will know, a construction site is a teeming microcosm with its own culture and its modus operandi evolved over decades - centuries even. For an academic retiree it was intense, engrossing, roller-coaster experience. Time-consuming, yes, as the building committee of which AGW Board Members Stephen Marshall and Murray Temple and myself-both U of W retirees-were part met weekly to help troubleshoot and also mind the public purse. But as I have said more than once, while tramping the site or watching the building rise from my favorite vantage point in the river front gardens or seeing the rough interior transformed into a polished public space, one couldn't wish for a better retirement project: We finished more or less on time, on a revised but realistic and responsible budget, and happy to have been part of a "work in progress" for the community we call home.

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