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June 3, 2005
Safdie advises museum group
Renowned architect reviews the historical society's plans for
new facility.
PAT JOHNSON
A group of Vancouverites who are behind the plans for a Jewish
museum in the city had an opportunity to bounce ideas off one of
the top institutional architects in the world Monday. Moshe Safdie,
designer of some of the world's most famous museums, sat down for
a chat in the Vancouver Public Library – a building he designed
– with members of the museum's steering committee.
Safdie quizzed organizers about the intent of the facility, which
is slated to open in early 2006. He wanted to know who the target
audience is and offered suggestions on raising the museum's appeal.
Among the challenges the museum faces, he said, is its location
on the third floor of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver
(JCC). Without much walk-by traffic, the imperative to bring more
people up the stairs to the museum becomes a challenge, Safdie said.
He strongly endorsed a proposal that the museum's proponents are
currently negotiating with the JCC – to extend the spiral staircase
that currently leads from the main floor down to the lower level's
Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. If the idea becomes reality,
there will be a grand spiral in the middle of the JCC linking the
cultural hubs of the Holocaust centre, the Zack Gallery, the Isaac
Waldman Jewish Public Library and the museum.
Safdie spoke of his experience with the Skirball Museum, Los Angeles's
Jewish museum and cultural centre, which he designed. That museum
spends about $1 million a year, he said, busing students and multicultural
communities to the museum, ensuring a constant flow of visitors.
He noted wryly, though, that Vancouver is not Los Angeles.
"It's a very wealthy community and it's not 30,000 [people],"
Safdie said.
Safdie said the museum must start with a "big bang" that
alerts the public to its arrival, must employ dynamic programming
in order to keep people returning and should co-ordinate plans with
other cultural institutions and events in the JCC so they complement
and do not compete with each other. The Skirball, he said, is a
combination of the 92nd Street Y – Jewish Manhattan's cultural
heart and the site of constant lectures, performances and diverse
programs – and a Jewish museum. On a smaller scale appropriate
to the community, Safdie said, Vancouver's Jewish museum should
try to emulate the success brought by variations in attractions.
He cautioned against the new museum falling into the pattern at
the Skirball Museum, where many of the patrons are elderly.
"My sense is that this is really for the young people,"
Safdie said.
Safdie became known to most Canadians in 1967, with his astonishing
modernist design of Habitat in Montreal. Vancouverites see his imprimatur
on our city through the main Vancouver Public Library building,
whose 10th anniversary celebration Safdie was in town to mark.
In addition to a new portion of Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum
and archives, Safdie is responsible for noted Canadian projects,
including the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Musée
de Civilisation in Gatineau and renovations to the Musée
des Beaux Arts de Montréal. Safdie, a Haifa-born Canadian,
has taught at McGill University and is a former director of the
urban design program at Harvard University.
Catherine Youngren, president of the Jewish Genealogical Institute
of B.C. and chair of the steering committee for the museum, said
having Safdie offer his insights on the Vancouver museum was invaluable.
"For me, having had the privilege of seeing Yad Vashem and
knowing the beauty and the emotive quality that architecture can
bring to the Jewish experience, it was just such an honor to have
an opportunity for him to look at our project," she said.
Bill Gruenthal, president of the Jewish Historical Society and a
prime mover behind the museum idea, said Safdie's advice was well-received.
In the long-term, Gruenthal said, a permanent, purpose-built cultural
facility would be ideal to house the museum. In the meantime, he
said, "we have to proceed with what we've got and make the
best of it."
Rabbi Yosef Wosk, a member of the steering committee and adjunct
curator of Judaica for the museum, arranged the meeting with the
noted architect.
"He's an ally as a Jew, as an Israeli, as a Canadian and as
a mensch, who has made friends in Vancouver and we appreciate that
he would have time to meet for us," Wosk said. "Moshe
was very perceptive. He asked certain questions to try and get an
idea of who our community was and the purpose of the museum, who
the audience would be."
Wosk said Safdie's advice, particularly on the importance of non-static
programming, will guide the organizers.
"We cannot just be a passive exhibit and expect people to come
in, especially when we're on the third floor," he said.
The rabbi, who has been a leading supporter of arts and letters
in the Jewish and general Vancouver communities, said the museum
is a "last peg" in a maturing Jewish community. There
already exist the primary institutions of Jewish life, such as synagogues,
schools, seniors facilities, social service agencies and so forth,
Wosk said. A museum is needed to teach young people and newcomers
about the history of the city and the place of Jews within it. The
museum will play a role in building relationships between the Jewish
community and others, he added.
"We can help interpret the Jewish community to the general
community," said Wosk. He also acknowledged the importance
of a central staircase linking the various cultural institutions,
culminating in the third-floor museum.
"This creates, on four levels, the museum, the library, the
Zack art gallery and then the Holocaust education centre, which
is also a museum," he said.
Pat Johnson is a B.C. journalist and commentator.
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