1 The Centennial Projects: Building the New Marco Polo and Colin Ripley Opening Act: Kraanerg On the evening of June 2, 1969, a crowd of Ottawa dignitaries, including Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) and Governor General Roland Michener (1900–1991), arrived at the brand new National Arts Centre, one of the last of the Centennial Projects com- missioned by the government to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of Canadian Confederation. A festive atmosphere settled over the gala for the official opening of the building, coming almost two years after the actual 1967 Centennial. Sitting in stark contrast to nearby buildings, the message of the National Arts Centre—with its brutalist exteriors, its orientation away from the fabric of the city, and its hexagonal plan—was clear, if not entirely comfortable for Ottawa residents: Canada and Canadian culture would be about the future, about new forms and new ideas. The performance that awaited the sold-out audience in Southam Hall, the largest stage in the facility, pushed the boundaries of newness further still. The main work on the pro- gram was a full-length ballet, Kraanerg, commissioned for the opening and choreographed by National Ballet director Roland Petit (1924–2011). Written by the avant-garde composer (and architect) Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001), Kraanerg was, as historian Jim Harley puts it, an aggressively modern, highly abstract “dialogue” on the “ideological disorders” facing 19 1 opposite Karen Bowes, Vanessa Harwood, Veronica Tennant, Garry Semeniuk, Timothy Spain, and artists of the ballet Kraanerg. Stage design by Victor Vasarely, 1969. 2 right Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. Rounthwaite and Fairfield, 1957. the world—a work based in the upheavals of the time of its writing in 1968 and 1969.1 Georges Henri Lévesque (1903–2000). After two years of meetings, the Commission pub- The set design, by Victor Vasarely (1906–1997), was equally abstract and stridently mod- lished its report, which recommended that the federal government participate in, and fund, ern. FIG 1 The whole production was a work of ambitious, avant-garde art, connected to development of the arts and sciences in Canada. As a result, in 1957, the Canada Council contemporary politics on the highest international level. for the Encouragement of the Arts, Letters, Humanities, and Social Sciences (later renamed Looking back on that evening across fifty years of intervening history, we could well ask: the Canada Council for the Arts) was founded, while expanded roles were assigned to the How had Canada become so modern? National Film Board and the National Gallery and funding to universities was increased significantly. The Massey Report devoted a scant six of its roughly five hundred pages explicitly to -ar Building a New Canada chitecture and town planning. Within those pages, the report suggested that “all important The 1950s and 1960s were a time of celebrating the new in Canada, as in much of the world. buildings should be designed in open competition.”2 More importantly, the Commission In the aftermath of World War II, there was a desire to concentrate on ways of moving accepted the observation presented to it by its panel of architectural experts that architec- forward rather than dwelling on the past. In Canada, thousands of servicemen returned ture was at best poorly understood by the general public, stating that: home to start families and careers, eager to get on with their lives, giving rise to the baby There was general agreement...between non-professional groups, professional architects boom and a culture of youth. It was also, of course, the Atomic Age, with all its promise and and government agencies, that it is of the first importance to arouse public interest and threat. In 1952, the first Canadian television stations started broadcasting; Toronto opened develop public understanding on a matter of such universal consequence.3 its first subway in 1954; and the planned suburbs arrived with the Don Mills neighborhood in 1953. Canadian artists played a central role in the development of this “culture of the On the heels of the Massey Report, the 1950s saw the construction of a significant num- new” throughout the 1950s, with the formation of Painters Eleven in 1953, the emergence ber of cultural facilities both in Canada and representing Canada abroad. The Canadian of Paul-Émile Borduas (1905–1960) and Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923–2002) in Quebec, and Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, designed by Ernesto Rogers (1909–1969) of the Italian firm Jack Shadbolt (1909–1998) and B. C. Binning (1909–1976) in Vancouver, among others. BBPR, was commissioned by the National Gallery in direct response to a recommendation Canadians understood their country to be a country of the future. of the Massey Report and opened in 1958.4 A highly idiosyncratic building best described as a stylized steel-and-glass wigwam, the Pavilion was among the first attempts to define a Canadian identity through modern architecture.5 The Massey Report In Canada, the list of important cultural facilities included the Festival Theatre in By the late 1940s, it had become clear that new infrastructure would be needed to continue Stratford, Ontario (Rounthwaite and Fairfield, 1957), which opened a year before the the development of the arts in Canada. This led to the establishment of the 1949 Royal Biennale pavilion and was awarded a Massey Medal in Architecture in 1958. FIG 2 In 1961, Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences—commonly the O’Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts (Earle C. Morgan and Page + Steele Archi- known as the Massey Commission or, more recently, the Massey-Lévesque Commission, tects, with Peter Dickinson, 1925–1961, as lead designer) opened in Toronto. FIG 3 Two after its chairman Vincent Massey (1887–1967) and its representative for French Canada, years earlier, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre had opened in Vancouver, the result of a design 20 NATIONAL MOVEMENTS THE CENTENNIAL PROJECTS 21 3 opposite, left O’Keefe Centre, Toronto, Ontario. Earle C. Morgan and Page + Steele, 1961. 4 opposite, right Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver, British Columbia. Affleck, Desbarats, Dimakopoulos, Lebensold, Michaud, Sise, 1959. 5 right Sir Robert Matthew, PRIBA, and Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, on the occasion of the prime minister’s address to the 57th Annual Assembly of the the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, St. Andrew’s, New Brunswick, 1964. competition won by a group of young architects from Montreal: Affleck, Desbarats, audience of gathered architects.7 The message was clear: the Centennial would be used to Dimakopoulos, Lebensold, Michaud, and Sise (later known as ARCOP). FIG 4 As a result create a new and united Canada, and architecture would be a key tool in achieving this goal. of this project, the firm established a reputation for the design of theaters and was awarded the contract to design Place des Arts in Montreal, which opened in 1963. The Centennial Commission Beginning in the late 1950s, grassroots and local initiatives to celebrate Canada’s upcoming The Centennial as an Opportunity Centennial of Confederation had started to form. Preparations for the Centennial officially As Canada became conscious of itself as a country of the new, the fast-approaching Centen- began with the passing of the National Centennial Act on September 29, 1961. With the nial of Confederation became an opportunity to push several agendas forward. To this end, appointment of John Fisher as commissioner in 1963, planning began in earnest. In addition two Canadian prime ministers—John Diefenbaker (1895–1979) in 1960 and Lester Pearson to the two main funding programs—the Centennial Grants Program and the Confederation (1897–1972) in 1964—addressed the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s (RAIC) Memorial Program—many programs and events of national significance were overseen and annual meeting. FIG 5 Both prime ministers spoke about the prospects that would be made funded by the Centennial Commission. Most of these were traveling exhibitions, such as the available to architects in relation to the upcoming centennial, although Diefenbaker’s an- Centennial Train and Caravans (the Commission’s largest single expenditure, which received nouncement was less specific than Pearson’s, since in 1960 no concrete programs had yet $11.4 million), but other programs included performances, publications, films, the minting been developed. of Centennial medals, the promotion of youth travel, pageants, sporting events, and so on. More crucially, though, the prime ministers elaborated on how the Centennial related Several construction projects were undertaken in the National Capital Region, includ- to nation-building, and on the vital role that architecture had to play. Diefenbaker dis- ing the creation of the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill, the replacement of stained cussed the similarity between building buildings and building nations, asking for a poetic glass windows in the Houses of Parliament, and the erection of a new National Library and response from the architects involved in the Centennial: Archives building. In terms of architecture, the most significant of these was the creation of the National Arts Centre (1969), designed by Fred Lebensold (1917–1985) of Affleck, ...something to touch the hearts of Canadians, something to represent the unity of our Desbarats, Dimakopoulos, Lebensold, and Sise (Jean-Charles-Édouard Michaud had left country, something to embody the paradox