Thematic dossier | Dossier thématique

The National Arts Centre and Canadian Identity Mitchell May is a master of architecture > Mitchell May graduate from Ryerson University. With the University and RVTR, his research has helped develop the documentation of Canada’s Centennial projects. His research work will also form part of the future publication of the updated 41˚ he cultural identity of Canada has to 66˚: Regional Response to Sustainable Tlong been an elusive concept; an enor- Architecture in Canada. He also contributed to mous expanse of varying landscapes and diverse populations at a glance appear to E.R.A. Architects’ 2010 publication, North York’s be inhibiting the formation of a national Modernist Architecture, that was bestowed the coherence. Canada’s Centennial celebra- Heritage Communications Award by the Canadian tions, with the accompanying surge of Association of Heritage Professionals. His current national pride, offered a key moment to built work involves combining new and existing unite people behind a “Canadian iden- spaces, to produce architecture anew. tity.” Important components of these celebrations were the Centennial build- ing projects; municipal projects matched dollar for dollar by the federal govern- ment, with eleven provincial or territor- ial projects in their respective capitals, and two federal projects: the Fathers of Confederation Centre, in Charlottetown, and the National Arts Centre (NAC), in . As the opus of the Centennial building program, the NAC offers a win- dow into the intentions of the govern- ment and the architects of many of the projects—ARCOP—in the search for a uniquely Canadian architectural expres- sion. Their quest was paralleled by simi- lar efforts in other areas of the arts in Canada.

In the decades preceding the Canadian Centennial, the increasing concern of American cultural influence on Canada led to the foundation of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (1949-1951), of which , the Governor General of Canada, was appointed chair- man in 1949. Massey expressly believed that the Canadian culture was one of an accommodating diversity,1 and argued that Canada must break free of increas- ing American influence, realign itself with Europe—with which he believed FIG. 1. The former Capitol Theatre, which although quite a grand edifice, was a movie theatre repurposed for other events. It was demolished in 1970. | Library and Archives Canada.

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FIG. 2. The Confederation Centre for the Arts was a proto-centennial project FIG. 3. University of Virginia Rotunda, 1826. Architect: Thomas Jefferson. | Wikimedia commemorating the Charlottetown Conference. Also designed by ARCOP, it Commons. is interesting to see the focus on the sculptural qualities of the courtyard between the buildings, and the simplicity of the buildings themselves. | Canadian Architect Magazine image collection, Ryerson University. that Canada had much in common—and city, including the Toronto and Montreal Further into the section, the discussion of foster the necessary development of the Symphony Orchestras,4 which were forced a National Theatre arises: “although wit- arts in order for this to happen. His strong to perform in school gymnasiums or a cin- nesses and other authorities on this mat- views and experience informed his leader- ema called the Capitol Theatre (fig. 1). ter differed in their conception of what a ship of what came to be known as the This section also interestingly begins with National Theatre should be and of how it Massey Commission and strongly influ- an excerpt of correspondence between should be brought about, there was wide enced the recommendations of the 1951 Samuel Marchbanks—a pseudonym of agreement that it should be one of our Massey Report, widely considered the Robertson Davies—and the fictional cultural resources.”6 Though some of the most important document in the history Apollo Fishhorn, Esq., on the state of the- authors thought a National Theatre build- of Canadian cultural policy.2 atre in Canada, relating specifically to the ing to be a wasteful endeavour without settings in which they take place: a company worthy of the title, the fragil- Found within the Massey Report are ity of such an enterprise is noted, as the descriptions of the cultural achievements [E]very great drama, as you know, has been budgets of different governments could of the country, followed by the commit- shaped by its playhouse. The Greek drama lead to their eventual demise. As in the tee’s recommendations for the enhance- gained grandeur from its marble outdoor earlier discussion of the setting forming ment of Canadian culture, as well as theatres; the Elizabethan drama was given the drama, we can see that in Canada briefs, studies, and letters, prepared by fluidity by the extreme adaptability of the there really was an acknowledgement of professional organizations and citizens, Elizabethan playhouse stage; French clas- the need for a physical structure to allow which dealt with the various fields of art- sical drama took its formal tone from its for something to continue to form. istic expression. The Theatre section of the exquisite, candle-lit theatres.5 report describes performances mounted The absence of an edifice to house the “in inappropriate and incongruous set- Marchbanks—or Davies—goes on to performing arts in the face of already tings, in gymnasiums, churches, hotel lament then that our own dramas would established cultural institutions such as rooms, school halls or in motion picture be coloured by their settings in gymna- the National Gallery remained un-rem- theatres rented for the occasion at ruin- siums of “the early concrete style,” with edied for twelve years, at which point ous cost.”3 Indeed, we know that this was the stories thus to be set in as many cellars the 1963 commissioning of Centennial the case in Ottawa for many large-scale as possible. commemoration projects and the productions that travelled through the accompanying nationalism offered an

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FIG. 4. Drawing of Pantheon, Rome, by Piranesi. | Wikimedia Commons.

FIG. 7. National Arts Centre site plan, 1969. Architect: Affleck, Desbarats, Dimakopoulos, Lebensold, Sise. | Canadian Architect Magazine.

FIG. 5. A view of a model of Jacques Greber’s plan for Ottawa, 1950. The Greber plan focused on the creation of axial boulevards and vistas in the beaux-arts FIG. 8. A view of an early model of the National Arts Centre, showing the tradition. | Ryerson University Library and Archives. protruding volumes, referred to by the architects as boulders or great stones in their early descriptions. | Canadian Architect Magazine.

FIG. 6. The plan’s beaux-arts character becomes evident again in this view of FIG. 9. A view of the National Arts Centre from the , showing the one of the plans for city hall, which demonstrates heavy classical influences interlinking terraces cascading toward the canal. | Canadian Architect Magazine image in the design. | Ryerson University Library and Archives. collection, Ryerson University.

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opportune time to revisit the discus- architecture, something that by its very authors of that section took issue with sion of such a project. The citizens of nature must become tangible, to rep- this mode of practice specifically because Ottawa’s desire for a theatre building resent such disparate regions, climates, they felt that Canada had distinct and was further enhanced by the emerging and cultures throughout the coun- obvious differences to the societies who idea of a grand cultural edifice in the try? Although Pearson was most likely developed these unique architectures, capital to commemorate the Centennial, speaking in terms of the cultural value and that they were being misappropri- as presented to then Prime Minister of the theatrical and musical produc- ated, and even diminished with the use Lester B. Pearson by Ottawa native and tions that would take place within the of inferior materials. But it was also noted newspaper heir Hamilton Southam.7 Confederation Centre, his insight rings in the same section that “this ‘cult of the This, in turn, led to the generation of true for the architecture of the complex extinct’ is the inevitable striving for form The Study of a National Centre for the as well. in building of a country without archi- Performing Arts, or the “Brown Book”— tectural roots . . . This literary attitude as it has come to be called—in 1963. Architecture can be read as one of the toward architecture, we are told, is far key indicators of the state of a soci- from dead”11 (fig. 6). And so, rather than In October of the following year, ety, and the architecture of Canada’s imitate, it became public policy that an Canadians witnessed the opening of Centennial building program exemplified architecture should be created in order the Confederation Centre for the Arts this notion. Architecture has long been to attempt to forge a unique, modern, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, used to metaphorically align young, post- Canadian identity. Architecture, at such a meant to commemorate a meeting at the colonial nations with the achievements significant time in Canada’s history, was Province House between the fathers of of long-established societies as a tool given the role of “culture creator.” Confederation one hundred years earlier. to allude to the longevity of the current The Confederation Centre served as a sort one. For example, following the American The Architecture of the of prototype for the Centennial building Revolution, Thomas Jefferson and National Arts Centre program, inciting other provinces and cit- Benjamin Latrobe advocated an ancient ies to start thinking of a more permanent Roman-inspired Georgian Palladianism Designed starting in 1964 by Affleck, monument of the year (fig. 2). in order to philosophically align the Desbarats, Dimakopoulos, Lebensold, United States with the power, stability, Sise, later known as ARCOP, The National At the opening of the Confederation and longevity of both the Roman and Arts Centre, as the national opus of the Centre in October 1964, Prime Minister British empires during turbulent times9 Centennial building program, represents Pearson noted: (figs. 3-4). Interestingly, within the a significant point in Canada’s architec- Massey Report, it is this imitation which tural history. What were the architects [The Fathers of Confederation Memorial is explicitly discussed: attempting to state about Canadian Building] is a tribute to those famous men society? Is “Canadian identity” rooted in who founded our Confederation. But it is [T]he prevailing pattern of Federal the landscape that their designs aimed also dedicated to the fostering of those Government buildings at Ottawa has been to evoke? The NAC offers a concrete, things that enrich the mind and delight the a matter of severe comment. Although, in landscape-derived answer to the ques- heart, those intangible but precious things theory, there is to be no regimentation on tion “What is Canadian culture?” that give meaning to a society and help cre- style in the buildings contemplated under ate from it a civilization and a culture.8 the new Capital Plan, there is a danger, The NAC forms a series of terraces cas- we are told, that the “romanticism” of the cading down toward the Rideau Canal, It is well understood that the need to Chateau Laurier will be replaced by that of with the extruded forms creating a ser- showcase these aspects of culture was Greece and Rome.10 (fig. 5) ies of environments that eventually important at that point in time, and so lead to the canal bank, and the main the National Arts Centre, as the second— The problem of an “architecture of imi- entrance (fig. 7). The uppermost terrace and only other—Federal project, with tation” is explicitly called upon by the is level with the Mackenzie King Bridge; the explicit mission as a place for the for- architect consultants of the report as three volumes protrude through this mation of culture, is extremely import- a primary problem in the formation of terrace, expressing the eight-hundred- ant in this regard. But how to forge an a Canadian architectural culture. The seat theatre, the flexible studio and the

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two-thousand-three-hundred-seat opera is to say, while restricting themselves to house-concert hall12 (fig. 8). The terraces the essentials of the object depicted, cascade down the hill from this point, they undertook to suggest through, but creating the sense of Laurentian gran- beyond the immediate object, the whole ite boulders perched on the bank of the grandeur and wildness of the Canadian canal, and allowing for multiple paths to landscape”14 (fig. 10). be taken from the street, meandering between the boulder forms, and down It is clear that, in painting, the culture to the lower levels; it is a building that of Canada was understood as being creates a simulated landscape (fig. 9). The expressed through Canadians’ literal hexagonal forms of the performance vol- “common ground.” The Massey Report ume “boulders” offer a geometric motif assertion that the Canadian painting FIG. 10. Lawren Harris Mount Thule, Bylot Island, that pervades every aspect of the design, scene was rightly rooted in the land- 1930. The geometric complexities of Mount Thule are from the interior finishes to the paving scape offers clues for architecture as reduced out in this painting, leaving an abstracted geometric expression in which the play of light stones on the terraces, to the angled well, which were taken up and explored across surfaces becomes evident. There is no trace of stairs. in the 1960s and 1970s. Canadian archi- people or wildlife, just a bare landscape. | Jim Gorman, Vancouver Art Gallery. tects came to reference the “common Read against the recommendations of ground,” or landscape, as the new root the Massey Report, the architecture of of a uniquely Canadian architecture, and the NAC can be understood as rejecting to create an architecture free of refer- the imitation of traditional architectural ences to the forms and symbols of past styles from elsewhere, in favour of an societies and colonial powers as a way to abstract, formal and material exploration avoid marginalizing or giving preference of the Canadian identity as an emana- to any of the unique identities that form tion of the landscape. It is fitting then, Canada. Much as in Canadian painting, that the building can be read as a “non- the emphasis becomes not on the object, building”; an assembly of abstract objects but on the atmosphere. Pure, unadorned in a field. The architects may have been geometries rise up above to meet the sky, linking Canadian identity to the natural and surround the occupant. beauty and power of the Canadian land- scape, or the lack of traditional architec- In The New Brutalism, Reyner Banham, tural forms could be seen as a critique or while discussing the Smithson’s move echo of Canada’s lack of a coherent iden- toward a “basic” architecture, notes: tity as a country. In its most basic sense, “they saw, in Mediterranean peasant architecture is the piling of stones; the buildings, an anonymous architecture of image of “boulders” on the terrace may simple and rugged geometrical forms, imply the architects’ commentary that smooth-walled and small-windowed, there truly was no Canadian architectural unaffectedly and immemorially at home identity and that all that could be done, in its landscape setting.”15 This descrip- at that moment, was pile stones. tion of a neutral architecture of geomet- ric form seems to fit very well with the And yet, although Canada lacked a realization of the National Arts Centre, as clear and characteristic architectural it uses sheer vertical surfaces of concrete expression at the time, other arts had faced in coarse granite aggregate to allow developed clear Canadian identities. The light to play on it rather than to adorn the Massey Report section on Painting cites surfaces with anything further, as well as the Group of Seven13 as embodying a manufacturing a landscape in which these FIGs. 11-12. Within the terraces, there is a sense of descriptive and romantic tradition: “that forms can sit. It is also interesting to note, closure and solidity. | Mitchell May.

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FIG. 13. Place Bonaventure, as seen from the air, reveals an inner garden within FIG. 14. From Elgin Street, the building presents no obvious entrance, but the city. | Bing Maps. various stairways and small storefronts to invite the passer-by to explore on top and beside it. | Canadian Architect Magazine image collection, Ryerson University.

again in the earlier Massey Report (in the Nevertheless, the Canadian landscape it This notion of isolation and fortifica- Architecture and Town Planning section), aims to emulate is not necessarily a wel- tion as a crucial part of the Canadian that there are mentions of this simplicity. coming one. Northrop Frye identifies the identity also brings to mind the notion In an excerpt from the special report pre- “garrison mentality” as a persistent and of the sublime landscape; the idea of pared by Eric Arthur, there is a discussion fundamental theme of Canadian litera- a landscape that awes the viewer with of the emerging “engineering architec- ture, wherein the hostility of the external grandeur, power, and thus danger was ture,” and the merits of their “simplicity environment evokes an introverted and found in Canadian landscape paintings of form, unbroken surface texture and intellectual character growth. Frye posits of the Group of Seven. The relationship the play of shadow.”16 Mentioned specific- that this development in Canadian litera- between architecture and landscape was ally are the grain elevators of the Prairies ture is indeed influenced by physical real- obviously important, but was especially and the Great Lakes, structures not meant ities of the built form of Canada, noting so during the period of heroic Canadian to symbolize anything other than their that in “the earliest maps of the country architecture of the 1960s and 1970s. In his function, but having taken on a broader the only inhabited centres are forts,”17 1994 essay entitled “Back to the Future,” meaning as some of the largest structures literal garrisons, and that this theme of Peter Buchanan retrospectively looks at in their settings, and thus akin in some isolation and fortification has become mid- to late-twentieth-century modern ways to the peasant dwellings described a part of the Canadian imagination. Canadian architecture, and describes a by Banham. The NAC remains within this This notion of defense with the hostile few prominent projects of the time that discussion, seeming to make the case that “cultural” environment pointed out by were sited at the tops of hills, and built the architect was “resetting” architecture the Massey Report, in which Canadian at a scale so as to complement the land- in Canada. This monument to culture culture, already fleeting and ephem- scape, such as Arthur Erickson’s Simon makes no reference to buildings as we eral, is increasingly diluted by American Fraser University. Conversely, there was knew them; there are no visual links to influence; as expressed in the architec- also the trend of bringing the “natural” the past, or any form of stripped-down ture of the NAC, Canadian culture is to landscape into the city, such as the roof classicism, but the replacement of “archi- be secured within a fortress-like edifice, garden of Place Bonaventure by ARCOP, tecture” with pure geometry and form protected by the weight and mass of the in Montreal (1964)18 (fig. 13). In the case outside of the traditional discourse. It is rough concrete forms. of the National Arts Centre, the afore- not a building in a landscape, but a land- mentioned idea of “building as land- scape in itself (figs. 11-12). scape” re-emerges, creating a heroic

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FIG. 15-16-17. Progressing through the entry sequence, one is met with a sort of blank side, descending under a terrace, with the view opening up to the river at the bottom of the steps, at which point the entrance is found.

FIG. 15. Google Maps.

FIG. 17. Canadian Architect Magazine image collection, Ryerson University.

FIG. 18. Where there is a definite sense of enclosure at some points on the terraces, they are contrasted by such moments as the view opening up to the Chateau Laurier, with the building carefully framing views beyond itself. | FIG. 16. Mitchell May. Canadian Architect Magazine image collection, Ryerson University. outcropping of rocks on the bank of mostly technical considerations and stud- inviting people in, whereas a theatre is a the canal. The building turns its back on ies in aid of making a case for the theatre, place of ceremony. The ideal siting of the the city (fig. 14), challenging visitors to there is a small section called Concept, building is further described as on a hill, walk through the landscape, until they in which the distinction between a cin- with promenades surrounding a round are confronted with the canal, approxi- ema and a theatre is made: one does not building. The procession to the building, mating a river, at which point they can wander in off the street to a theatre in of which one is able to experience the turn and be embraced by the building. the same way one does to a cinema. The awesomeness, is seen as important at that Within the “Brown Book,” a report of cinema, the author notes, is a signboard early stage. The entrance procession of

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the NAC as rendered by the architects, meant to alter key characteristics of the NOTES in which one crosses over the landscape design and expression of the building. As “promenade” surrounding the protruding opposed to the contemplative landscape 1. Finlay, Karen A., 2004, The Force of Culture: buildings, or descends to face out to the and the almost defensive weightiness Vincent Massey and Canadian Sovereignty, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, p. 206. canal, then, is a part of the ceremony and of the building, concepts such as a four- 2. Id. : 211. the seriousness of the institution. For the storey glass pavilion with a tunnel carv- most part, windows do not face out to the ing into the building to access the canal 3. Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, Royal Commission on National Development street, but the canal, as if to force people side lobbies have been proposed. Rather in the Arts, Letters and Sciences 1949-1951 to realize the vastness and extreme power than maintain the challenging entrance (1951), Massey Report, Ottawa, Edmont of the Canadian landscape through the that pulls visitors through the landscape, Cloutier. connection with the canal and surround- such an entrance pavilion would devalue 4. Jennings, Sarah, 2009, Art and Politics: The ing open space (figs. 15-17). the terraces that have been created to History of the National Arts Centre, Toronto, cross and reflect upon before and after Dundurn Press, p. 18. The fact that the building faces the each performance. Fifty years after the 5. Massey Report : 192. Rideau Canal is also a literal manifesta- cultural quest of the Massey Commission 6. Id. : 193-194.

tion of the garrison mentality, within a and the Centennial preparations, there 7. Jennings : 18. larger historical landscape of militarism. is a proposal to fundamentally alter a 8. Pearson, Lester B., n.d., Our History - The Rideau Canal was built to ensure that building that was a significant attempt Confederation Centre for the Arts, retrieved the link between Kingston and Montreal at discussion of the Canadian identity in from [http://www.confederationcentre.com/ could not be severed by an American architecture, into a building that is just en/our-history.php], accessed February 12, 2012. invasion following the War of 1812. By like many others. analogy, the NAC was built at a time of 9. McDowell, Peggy and Richard Meyer, 1994, The Revival Styles in American Memorial Art, perceived “cultural” invasion from the When the National Arts Centre first Wisconsin, Popular Press, p. 23. United States, as evidenced the Massey opened, it was praised for establishing 10. Massey Report : 220. Report’s call for Canadians to “shake off” not just a place for the arts to prosper, American influence, and look to Europe, but for the creation of an urban environ- 11. Id. : 217-218. understood in the report to be the place ment where there was none before. And 12. National Arts Centre, Ottawa, July 1969, Canadian Architect, vol. 14, no. 7, p. 30-63. of common Canadian roots. It is interest- now in a single act, there is the potential ing then that the NAC, a building meant to destroy the intention of this building. 13. A group of Canadian landscape painters active in the early twentieth century. to give birth to a Canadian culture, has its The introduction of built elements such as main entrance oriented toward the canal, the earlier proposed glass pavilion threat- 14. Massey Report : 205. and forces confrontation of the duality ens to totally undermine the reading of 15. Banham, Reyner, 1966, The New Brutalism, of this simulated natural environment. the centre as a landscape. The NAC grew New York, Reinhold Publishing Corporation, p. 46-47. This essential infrastructural tool allowed out of the Massey-initiated project to 16. Massey Report : 218. for the maintenance of the connections forge a unique cultural expression in the between two important cities at the Canadian arts, in order to demonstrate 17. Frye, Northrop, 1971, The Bush Garden, Toronto, Anasi Press, p. 224-226, retrieved time, serving a defensive role, as well as the growth of Canada from a colony into from [http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/headers/0660. uniting disparate parts of the country into a country all its own. Alterations insensi- xml], accessed March 3, 2012. a whole in the face of external threat. tive to the NAC, a structure conceived 18. Buchanan, Peter, 1994, “Back to the Future,” under this important mandate, would Canadian Architect, vol. 39, no. 3, p. 20-30. This year (2013) marks the fiftieth anni- signify an abandonment of this cultural versary of the “Brown Book,” the docu- project (fig. 18). Where the National Arts ment that served as the template by Centre of the Centennial said that Canada which the NAC was conceived, and in was a forward-looking, optimistic nation, less than that time-lapse, the building what does this say about Canadians, now has faced proposed alterations on a that they are so quickly willing to turn number of occasions. Seemingly, these their backs on this landscape that was are not minor changes, but ones that are modeled after their own?

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