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Fort York National Historic Site Visitor Centre |
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Recommended Design chosen for the New Visitor Centre at Fort York
A jury has unanimously recommended the conceptual design submitted by Patkau Architects Inc., Vancouver, with Kearns Mancini Architects Inc., Toronto, for the new Visitor Centre at Fort York National Historic Site.
Here is the Patkau/Kearns Mancini conceptual design, previously identified as Presentation A.
In the recommended design, the Visitor Centre forms a new escarpment of weathering-steel, re-establishing the original sense of a defensive site. The jury noted that the success of the Patkau/Kearns Mancini collaborative design lies in the use of the steel-escarpment and a simple foreshore of grasses, which when combined with the recently launched multi-media art installation Watertable, interpret the historic site condition of the original Lake Ontario shoreline bluff, and provide a strong visual presence for the Fort.
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The historic site on the original shoreline can be seen in this 1804 watercolour. |
Click for larger PDF
Credit: Lieutenant Sempronius Stretton, 49th Regiment, Library and Archives Canada, C14905 |
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Five architectural teams were invited to submit conceptual designs from a field of 31 participants. The teams selected were: Baird Sampson Neuert Architects; Diamond and Schmitt Architects Inc; du Toit Allsopp Hillier / du Toit Architects Limited; Patkau Architects with Kearns Mancini Architects Inc.; Raw Design with Gareth Hoskins Architects.
The jury for the competition includes: George F. Dark, Marianne McKenna, Charles Pachter, Antonio Gomez-Palacio, Anthony Tung, Rocco Maragna and Rick Haldenby. Read about the jury members.
In addition to the Patkau/Kearns Mancini design, three other submissions were received. Previously presented anonymously, you may now view them with the architectural teams identified:
The Visitor Centre will be designed to:
- Orient visitors and show them how best to interpret what they will see on the site through the presentation of an audio-visual program, exhibits and other media.
- Expand public programming by providing enhanced facilities.
- Provide support facilities to free Fort York's historic structures from non-public uses. For the first time since the Fort became a museum in 1934, the historic buildings will be entirely open to the public.
- Provide visitors with a better facility equipped with washrooms, a gift shop, food service, multi-purpose rooms and other services to enhance the visitor experience.
- Meet broader community needs by providing space that can be used during Fort York's non-public hours (multi-purpose space, theatre experience, community meeting room space).
The building of the Visitor Centre will facilitate a much needed change in how Fort York is perceived as a public resource. Located outside the walls of the existing museum, but within the 43-acre (17-hectare) National Historic Site, the Visitor Centre will reframe Fort York to include not only the seven-acre museum within the Fort's walls, but also the archaeological landscape/former Lake Ontario shoreline to the south, the Garrison Common/battlefield, military cemeteries located at Strachan Avenue and Victoria Memorial Square, the Fort York Armoury and Garrison Creek parkland being developed to the east. The Visitor Centre will be the hub connecting visitors to the entire experience and content of the 43-acre site as well as to the surrounding neighbourhoods and the entire city.
Fort York National Historic Site Visitor Centre Needs Assessment
Fort York National Historic Site Visitor Centre Needs Assessment prepared by Lord Cultural Resources, February 2009.
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