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A North Vancouver Institution Enters a New Era

by Lucien Durey

The Polygon Gallery , formerly Presentation House Gallery, opened to the public on November 18 with a bold new waterfront building at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver. The purpose-built facility, designed by Patkau Architects, is 25,000 square feet, a great increase to the renowned photography and media gallery’s exhibition and event spaces.

Hoisted above an airy, street-level glass atrium, the second floor is clad in industrial grating over glimmering polished steel with a saw-tooth roof, giving the institution a landmark quality worthy of its longstanding reputation. The design is simple and eye-catching, adding to other iconic North Shore features nearby—the rotating neon ‘Q’ sign of the Lonsdale Quay Market, for one.

For some 40 years, a few blocks up the hill from Polygon’s new location, Presentation House Gallery shared an unassuming building on Chesterfield Avenue. A former girls’ school, then North Vancouver City Hall and RCMP Station, its unremarkable outside was at odds with the programming inside.

Over those four decades, Presentation House Gallery connected its BC audience to an international discourse through exhibitions that showcased (and often combined) historic, contemporary, regional and international perspectives. The organization was, and remains, a leader in the production of culture and knowledge, through its context within the Lower Mainland and reaching far beyond.

Polygon’s website offers an archive of past shows , including photo documentation and scans of promotional ephemera dating back as far as 1983. Among them: the first Canadian solo show of works by Claude Cahun, curated by Karen Love in 1998; the exhibition “Hannah Hoch: Collages 1889–1978” in 1993; “Diane Arbus: Magazine Work 1969–1971” in 1987; and the first comprehensive survey of work by Anne Collier in 2008.

The organization’s recent name change acknowledges a lead donation of $4 million from the Audain Foundation and Polygon Homes Ltd.; Michael Audain is chairman of both. While a rebranding was always in the cards—there was frequently public confusion between Presentation House Gallery and Presentation House Theatre, a fact I can attest to as a former gallery employee—the new moniker would have been more universally welcomed had it been a reflection of the gallery’s legacy, rather than its funding.

The inaugural exhibition at the new home for the gallery is titled “N. Vancouver,” and it plays, accordingly, on location. It features existing and commissioned works relating to the North Shore and by artists connected to it—some are current or former residents, or have studios nearby.

“N. Vancouver” also reflects on the history of the gallery, presenting work from many who have previously exhibited at Presentation House Gallery, or as part of its offsite projects—Myfanwy MacLeod, Babak Golkar, Jeremy Shaw and Raymond Boisjoly, among other returnees.

There are also notable ways in which the exhibition artwork itself plays off the architecture of the new building.

The Polygon’s transparent ground floor, for instance, and its integration within what will soon be a bustling public square, invites impromptu viewership from passersby. So now, without entering the building, looking in through the floor-to-ceiling glass panels, you can see Tim Lee’s Lonsdale Quay, North Vancouver, August 21, 2017 , which is a video of the recent solar eclipse as seen through the aforementioned ‘Q’ sign.

Around the corner, in a glass enclosure facing Carrie Cates Court, is Raw Goods by Holly Ward, consisting of two pointed piles of coal and sulphur. The work is prefaced by her earlier Island (2005/2009), in which a pile of dirt is transferred around the gallery by staff. In this current case, movement is projected onto the materials through their visual association with nearby export terminals.

Also viewable from outside of the gallery is Myfanwy MacLeod’s The Butcher’s Apron , a one-eighth scale recreation of Captain Vancouver’s HMS Discovery —the ship that, in the 1790s, carried Europeans to one of their first points of contact with the Coast Salish population living here. The vessel is shown as it existed once it was converted into a prison ship in the 1810s—a fittingly unheroic representation.

MacLeod’s sculpture launches a 10-year commissioning program made possible by the Burrard Arts Foundation—one work per year. Its nod to makeshift structures hearkens, again, back to the original Presentation House Gallery, where windows were sealed behind layers of drywall and paint, among other ad hoc modifications.

That old gallery was located at the top of several flights of stairs and had idiosyncrasies fitting for a century-old building—winding passageways and mounting summer heat. The fact that it maintained a strong international reputation in spite of its venue speaks to the ingenuity of its curators and preparators.

Back on Chesterfield Avenue, staff problem-solved around limitations using necessarily unorthodox approaches: I was once part of a team of six that hand-maneuvered huge and impossibly heavy frames down the north stairwell, across a sloping lawn, and into the exterior doors of the preparatory room. At one point, a sizeable storage space in the west gallery was permanently sealed over to make a large, uninterrupted wall. And I recall at least one show required massive portable dehumidifiers—humming elephants in the room.

I can only imagine what the staff of Polygon will accomplish with the ability to focus attention beyond overcoming installation-related obstacles. The new gallery has high, vaulted ceilings, with north-facing windows, an LED lighting system, a freight elevator, and an environmental infrastructure for controlling temperature and humidity. There’s also an event hall and catering kitchen, a gift shop and a spot for a future café.

Some of the former gallery’s most important assets have been maintained at the new location, too—namely its longtime personnel, director Reid Shier, chief curator Helga Pakasaar and gallery manager Diane Evans.

Shier and Pakassaar’s contributions are more outwardly apparent—Shier’s effort towards the realization of Polygon spans more than a decade, and Pakassaar’s curatorial feats with the gallery date back over two decades.

Evans is the organization’s unsung hero: Since 1987, she has overseen exhibition installations, and she is the mastermind behind the curated bookstore, now located on the second floor and online . Her extensive knowledge of darkroom processes and photographers both historic and contemporary contributes to an always thoughtful selection of titles for purchase. Additionally, through her role as instructor in the photography program at Emily Carr University (where she should be tenured faculty, by the way) Evans facilitates a constant reciprocal engagement between the gallery and a flow of young artists and curators.

“This gallery allows us to show all the artwork that we could possibly imagine,” said Shier during opening week. For “N. Vancouver,” this also includes photographic works by Vancouver photoconceptualist greats Stan Douglas, Rodney Graham and Jeff Wall; weavings by Squamish Nation artists Lisa Lewis (X Wemilut), Shelley Thomas ( K at x inamet) and Tracy Williams (Sesemiya); and sculptures by Cameron Kerr and Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill.

Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill’s four sculptures, with the combined title Four Effigies For the End of Property: Preempt, Improve, The Highest and Best Use, Be Long (2017) were all made with deaccessioned objects from the North Vancouver Museum and Archives , whose new home will soon inhabit Polygon’s neighbouring lot. Nearly all of Hill’s materials—hoses, fencing, funnels and shapes cut from metal sheeting—carried an accession date of 1992, and are speculated to have been collected and catalogued by the museum from the closing of Versatile Pacific Shipyards, which once occupied this very site.

Hill’s works challenge modes of land use, occupation and ownership, reaching into this location’s relatively recent history in order to eloquently suggest forthcoming precarity and instability.

And her project is an example of Polygon’s commitment to the facilitation of critical discourse: while celebrating the hard-fought achievement of this new property, the gallery has simultaneously commissioned a work that seems to prophesy its eventual end. For the foreseeable future, let’s toast to Polygon’s promising new era.

Lucien Durey is an artist and writer based in Vancouver.

Lucien Durey

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Presentation House Arts Centre

Presentation House Arts Centre, encompassing the Presentation House Theatre , Presentation House Gallery and the North Vancouver Museum has been a space for the convergence of the arts, culture, and heritage of the North Shore community for thirty years. As a designated heritage building, Presentation House is a recognized name on the North Shore as a distinguished space for creative expression and a catalyst for cultural development in the community. Over the years, the theatre space has provided residents and emerging talent the unique opportunity to celebrate live performances, presentations, artist exhibitions, and musical performances.

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Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver is officially open

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The Polygon Gallery is officially open to the public.

After being in the works for nearly three decades, the new 25,000-square-foot facility, billed as Western Canada’s largest photography-focused gallery, opened its doors Nov. 18.

For those involved in the process of getting the former Presentation House Gallery moved to its new shining beacon of a structure at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue, it was a long time coming.

“As early as the early ’90s … there was a concentrated effort of the staff and the gallery to find a new home,” explained director and curator Reid Shier at a media tour for the new gallery last Tuesday.

“They thought that would take a couple of years.”

Presentation House Gallery was founded in 1976, functioning as a community art space at its longtime location at Third Street and Chesterfield Avenue.

In the early 1980s, gallery staff made the decision to focus specifically on photography.

“There was a kind of devoted exercise in re-thinking what the gallery could be and it adopted a mandate to show photography, which at the time was not deemed to be as privileged a medium for artists as it is now,” Shier explained.

If photography was a more scoffed at art form back then, today’s Polygon Gallery shows just how far appreciation for the medium has come.

The $18-million facility is nestled mere steps away from Lonsdale Quay. The spacious, light-filled building features two floors and several large presentation spaces for displaying photography and other mediums.

The building was first designed in 2012 with help from Patkau Architects. The City of North Vancouver voted to approve the gallery’s new home at the foot of Lonsdale in 2014.

Shier said the new building was very specifically designed to fit into the property at 101 Carrie Cates Court in a way that didn’t obstruct Lower Lonsdale’s signature views of Burrard Inlet.

“You’ll note this ground floor glass atrium, which the Patkaus were very specific about making that as people, pedestrians, walked down Lonsdale and came across Carrie Cates (Court) that they weren’t met with this kind of monolithic structure,” he said.

While the design of the building isn’t meant to evoke a monolith, Polygon Gallery’s inaugural exhibition in the new space is certainly colossal, with Shier noting in a curatorial statement that it’s the most ambitious project in the gallery’s history.

The N. Vancouver exhibition, on display until April 30, 2018, brings together more than 15 regional artists, mainly working in photography, to present pieces specifically on the theme of the gallery’s hometown and surroundings.

“It’s really important to me that the first exhibition in this new building really reflected a view of our hometown of North Vancouver but also the North Shore and its long history,” Shier said.

Some featured photography of note includes works by Jeff Wall and Greg Girard. Their work examines the intersection of industry and the area’s natural beauty, with Girard’s photos focusing on the “visual grandeur” of North Vancouver’s sulphur and mineral piles and Wall’s “Coastal Motifs” showcasing a stunning shot of Lynn Peak juxtaposed with industry.

“That’s a theme that echoes through a lot of this work, is all of those tensions around land and ownership and use that have continued to be part of a conversation,” he said.

Other additions include a powerful display plastered along the gallery’s stairwell designed by Nisga’a artist Jordan Abel that borrows words from Western novels about territory, land and ownership and repurposes them to form a concrete poem that takes the shape of Burrard Inlet.

A video installation by Deep Cove artist Jeremy Shaw, filmed in North Vancouver a decade ago, takes an impressionistic look at youth “Straight Edge” culture. The film is being projected on two large screens in another room.

While the displayed photography and art pieces are impressive, in equal measure is the space itself.

“Through pure blind luck and through our reputation we weren’t deprived of too many things at the older space,” Shier said. “But our capacity to show the kind of work you’re seeing here was limited in the sense that we had no environmental infrastructure. … On a very basic level, this gallery allows us to show all the artwork we can possibly imagine.”

The three levels of government each donated $2.5 million to fund the gallery, in addition to sizable private donations.

The initial funding for the gallery was a $4-million boost from the Audain Foundation and Polygon Homes in 2014.

Polygon Homes chairman, art collector and philanthropist Michael Audain said he was thrilled the gallery’s new space finally matches the strength of its reputation for outstanding photographic art exhibitions.

“It’s going to be a museum of international reputation, the art that they will be exhibiting will be amongst the most important photographic art in the world,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned it couldn’t be a better home.”

While N. Vancouve r in large part deals with the North Shore and the region’s changing landscape, the same could be said for the opening of Polygon Gallery itself and its addition to the changing landscape of Lonsdale.

Shier introduced a work by artist Myfanwy MacLeod that depicted a one-eighth scale re-creation of Captain Vancouver’s Discovery ship, the first ship that moored off of Point Grey in the late 18th century. Although the visual model of the ship is impressive, it displays a sleight of hand: the piece is actually a re-creation of the ship from years later after it was decommissioned and moored on the Thames River, used as a prison hold at a time when prison space was lacking in London.

In other words, times change – and so do art galleries, art work and the spaces wherein they’re contained.

“It starts to speak to one of the themes of the show, which is how history unravels and how it’s never one fixed thing.”

Visit thepolygon.ca for exhibition times and gallery information.

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333 Chesterfield Avenue North Vancouver British Columbia V7M 3G9 T: 604 990-3473  

Presentation House Theatre (PHT) has been a premier provider of theatrical programming on the North Shore for over thirty years, offering an experience that is intimate, friendly and entertaining. As the most established theatre venue on the North Shore, PHT presents a diverse mix of performances and facilitates the development of the performing arts throughout the community.

Presentation House Theatre presents and produces shows to the highest professional standard while also appealing to the diversity of the North Shore. PHT offerings include programming for children and youth, adults young and old, the music aficionado and innovative and emerging dancers.

Presentation House Cultural Society operates Presentation House Theatre, and oversees the maintenance of the Presentation House Arts Centre for all facility users and tenants including Presentation House Gallery and the North Vancouver Museum.

Presentation House Theatre is situated on the North Shore, four blocks from the Lonsdale Quay in the heart of the Lower Lonsdale community.

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Polygon Gallery

North Van's former Presentation House Gallery renamed itself and relocated to this dramatic, sawtooth-roofed waterfront landmark in 2017, providing greatly increased wall space for the multiple exhibitions staged here throughout the year. Photoconceptualism remains a focus but expect thought-provoking contemporary art installations and evocative Aboriginal exhibits as well. There are free 45-minute tours every Saturday at 2pm. On our visit, a new North Vancouver Museum was also under construction across the street.

Check out the panoramic second-floor views over the water and save time to visit the bookstore and lobby-level gift shop, complete with Polaroid cameras, artisan jewelry and papaya-themed jigsaws shaped like – you guessed it – papayas.

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Photo by Ema Peter Photography.

Photo by Ema Peter Photography.

• The Polygon Gallery

On the edge.

• Story: Imogen Jefferies

It’s a particularly wet day in November, and Reid Shier opens the glass doors of The Polygon Gallery to let me into a very dry—and nearly finished—space on the southernmost edge of North Vancouver’s Lonsdale Avenue. It feels like we’re sitting on the edge of the world; my eyes dart across the hardwood floors, up the sky-high glass walls, and out onto the deep, dark blue Pacific Ocean before nestling over the skyline of downtown Vancouver . The Polygon, the new iteration of what was once Presentation House Gallery , has chosen a pretty epic spot to call home.

“The Presentation House was in a very out of the way, very old, and somewhat decrepit house,” says Shier, who was executive director of the North Shore gallery for the last 11 years, and facilitated its big move to the Lower Lonsdale waterfront. The original Presentation House building opened in 1976 on Chesterfield Avenue as a multi-disciplinary art destination, with an exclusive photography space subsequently opening in 1981. The run-down building was a juxtaposition to the photography it housed, with international artists like Annette Kelm and Anne Collier and Vancouver photographers like Stan Douglas and Fred Herzog all showing there. It was also the largest non-profit photography site in Western Canada, making a move to a better location a goal from the start: “As early as the late ‘70s, there was a desire for a facility that could really show off those exhibitions, and be a more suitable gallery space to dignify the type of artists they featured,” says Shier. “The tenants in the building were promised a new facility because it was clearly just going to be a stopgap. They didn’t realize they would be there 40 years later.”

Forty-one years later, to be exact, the photography and media-based art gallery took on a new name, and opened its doors on Nov. 18, 2017. The building sits on a prime piece of land—the view and the history of the area make it exceptionally special—and Shier says the migration involved a lot of conversations, and a lot of help from the city and the community. “It was a real confluence of a lot of different ingredients coming together finally, at the right time,” he explains. “The dream location was where we’re standing right now, and the ideal end result was an architecturally significant structure at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue. To have a public building on this site is an incredibly important civic statement.” The gallery opening coincides with the City of North Vancouver’s plan to redesign Lower Lonsdale, with an end goal of making North Vancouver a larger, and more refined, cultural and entertainment destination.

Vancouver’s Patkau Architects was commissioned to create the stunning structure. Known for using Pacific Northwest-inspired materials in its distinct, modern buildings (such as the noteworthy Audain Art Museum in Whistler ), the firm brought Shier’s multiple visions to life. First, he wanted something that would fit into the industrial shipyard history of the region; second, he wanted to do the view justice; and third, he wanted visitors and locals to be able to dwell and admire the art in a bright, open space. “This whole idea of a glazed podium to which the bulk of the gallery sits is a response to both to the historic character of this area, and the current needs of it and the site itself,” says Shier. We’re standing on the first floor, and the translucency of the building means it spills out onto the surrounding streets and waterfront. It is both modern and inviting.

Shier guides our gaze north, revealing that a major design feature involved making the breathtaking water vista visible from even two blocks up Lonsdale. “There was a lot of sensitivity in blocking views of the harbour, so it was designed with attention to the pedestrian circulation around the building,” he says. As such, the building seems to melt into its surroundings instead of stick out.

The metal skin roof is made with aluminum cladding, illuminating the region’s use as a major shipyard site during the Second World War. The other point of interest in the design is the abundance of natural light even on the rainiest of days. This is especially noticeable on the second floor; step into the gallery room and look up at the layered skylight, which brings an angelic wave of airiness throughout the space.

The other half of the second floor features an amazing event and education space, where fundraisers and galas, as well as week-long art courses for elementary schools, can be held. During warmer months, visitors can step through the retractable glass door and out onto the patio overlooking to the entire inlet.

The Polygon’s first exhibit celebrates North Vancouver and runs until the end of April 2018. “It was important for me that when we open our doors for the first time, that the work here had a specific relationship to the region around which the gallery sits. All of the artists in my opening exhibition are all local or regional; some live in other cities, but all have roots or a relationship with Vancouver or North Vancouver,” Shier explains. “All of the work is about, or in response to, North Van. People in North Van who are coming into this building for the first time will see something very recognizable, but filtered through the lens of visual artists.”  

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The Polygon Gallery: A game changer across the water

The Polygon Gallery opens to the public this weekend with a show focusing on North Vancouver

Visitors at the new Polygon Gallery will be treated to jaw-dropping views of the Vancouver skyline to the south.

Ema Peter Photography

This article was published more than 6 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.

It's a safe bet that many of the people who visit the Polygon Gallery for its free opening this weekend will be motivated by curiosity about the building. This $18-million, 25,000-square-foot gallery has risen on North Vancouver's waterfront; a gleaming new beacon for SeaBus passengers as they chug across the Burrard Inlet from Vancouver. It's sure to be a game changer for the Lonsdale Quay neighbourhood; there's a lot more to do here now than meander through a so-so public market. And from inside the gallery, visitors will be treated to jaw-dropping views of the Vancouver skyline to the south.

But even if the star of the show is the Patkau Architects-designed gallery, its raison d'être is what's on the walls and installed around the building. It won't be forever that the building upstages the art.

For its inaugural exhibition in its new oceanfront location, the Polygon has mounted a show focusing on art that has a connection to the city, in a show called N. Vancouver.

"I'm nervous, I'm excited. I'm excited to show the building off," executive director and curator Reid Shier said during a private tour. "I'm proud of the building, I'm proud of the show. We've done our best."

Richardson Grain Terminal, North Shore.

greg girard/Monte Clark Gallery/the collection of Roger Holland

The Polygon, formerly Presentation House Gallery (which resided in much smaller and shabbier quarters a few blocks away), is a non-collecting public gallery with an emphasis on photography and media arts. It has a stellar reputation and history, but this exhibition focuses on the history of the place where it resides, rather than the gallery itself.

N. Vancouver features work by more than 25 artists, including some 15 commissions; all have a connection to the city. Issues such as contact and colonization, Indigenous relations, the resource economy and North Van's cultural history are dealt with in smart and sometimes surprisingly beautiful ways. When was the last time a photo of a grain terminal rocked your world?

The show begins outside, with Raw Goods , a new work by Holly Ward, visible from the exterior in a glassed-in gallery. The installation features two wide, cone-like piles – one coal, one sulphur. Both commodities are integral to the local economy, and the sulphur's bright yellow is a familiar sight for anyone who has spent time on the Stanley Park Seawall across the Inlet.

In the Polygon's light-flooded lobby, Myfanwy MacLeod's The Butcher's Apron stands dark against the backdrop of the Burrard Inlet, on the other side of the glass wall. It's a one-eighth scale recreation of the HMS Discovery, the ship captained by George Vancouver that led the Europeans to the first point of contact with the Coast Salish here. After the ship was decommissioned as a naval vessel, it was permanently moored back in England, on the Thames, serving as a hospital and, later, a prison. MacLeod's model, constructed with charred wood, recreates the ship at the prison stage, with two extra levels. The scale installation uses a full-size Union Jack – a pejorative term for which is "the Butcher's Apron."

Also in the lobby will be Tim Lee's video Lonsdale Quay, North Vancouver, August 21, 2017 . It wasn't installed yet during my visit on Wednesday, but Shier explained that it was shot during last summer's solar eclipse, tracked through the landmark "Q" sign outside the Lonsdale Quay Public Market next door.

Jordan Abel’s large-scale work, Cartography (12), was created in the shape of Burrard Inlet. Abel conducted Control-F searches through digital versions of old western novels to find words related to a theme.

On the way up to the second floor and the main galleries, visitors will encounter a new work by Nisga'a poet Jordan Abel, this year's winner of the prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize. As he has done previously, Abel conducted Control-F searches through digital versions of old western novels to find words related to a theme – in this case, issues of territory and ownership. The large-scale work, Cartography (12) , is created in the shape of the Burrard Inlet.

Upstairs, one large gallery is installed with Jeremy Shaw's two-channel video projection Best Minds . The work documents a rave held in North Vancouver; part of a puritanical punk subculture known as "straight edge," where participants abstain from sex, drugs and alcohol (but apparently not slam dancing).

Next door, the large Freybe Family Gallery is installed with spectacular works by Vancouver superstars such as Jeff Wall, Stan Douglas, Rodney Graham and many more. There are three photographs by Greg Girard, including the grain-terminal works I found so striking, Untitled (Grain Terminal) and Cargill and Neptune Grain Terminals . I was particularly moved by Squamish Nation weaver Shelley Thomas's recreation of the ancestral blanket Chief Joe Capilano wore when he famously met with King Edward VII in London in 1906 to appeal for Indigenous rights back home in Canada. There's an iconic photograph of the delegation in which he is holding the blanket. Thomas later learned of a family connection to the blanket – it was likely woven by her great-great-grandfather's sister.

Rodney Graham’s Paddler, Mouth of the Seymour.

Nearby, a text work by Haida artist Raymond Boisjoly speaks to the Indigenous experience. The work is made up of pieces of 8 1/2-by-11-inch paper, hung as if they are woven on the wall. The sheets are photocopies and when you examine the work, you see that they spell out "Places Beyond Become Another." Boisjoly, a finalist for this year's Sobey Art Award, used to work for Presentation House – making photocopies, among other things – so perhaps there's a cheeky aspect to this work. But on a very serious note, the words speak to the Indigenous experience, and I read them as speaking very much to this moment for the gallery and the city. Presentation House has become another place, the Polygon – a place perhaps beyond the gallery's wildest dreams. And the Polygon will no doubt be transformative for this part of North Vancouver, a place beyond the big city across the water.

The Polygon opens to the public on Saturday and is free through the weekend (after that, admission is by donation). N. Vancouver runs to April 29 ( thepolygon.ca ).

About Presentation House Theatre

Presentation House Cultural Society Presentation House Cultural Society operates Presentation House Theatre, and oversees the maintenance of the Presentation House Arts Centre for all facility users and tenants.

We actively recognize that our work and art takes place on Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Territories.

Presentation House Theatre (PHT) Nestled in the heart of North Vancouver’s Lower Lonsdale, Presentation House Theatre has become a neighbourhood creative hub, providing the community with a dynamic mix of professional theatre, music, and dance productions — all just a Seabus away from downtown Vancouver. We are the North Shore’s professional theatre company. For more than 40 years, we’ve entertained audiences with innovative programming and quality professional productions in our wonderfully welcoming space. We are committed to presenting and producing shows of the highest standard, and appealing to the diversity of North Shore audiences. We proudly offer programming for children and youth, adults young and old, the music aficionado and the innovative and emerging dancers. We are the cultural hub in your own backyard.

Why we’re here

PHT Mandate Presentation House Theatre believes that professional theatre is for everyone. Every show we present or produce will be of the highest professional standard while also appealing to the diversity of the North Shore. We are proud to offer programming for children and youth, adults young and old, the music aficionado and the innovative and emerging dancers. We are the cultural hub in your own backyard.

PHT Objectives

• To produce & develop work that is accessible, engaging and entertaining
• To provide a home for new and innovative emerging artists
• To bring a world of culturally diverse  playwrights, choreographers, performers and producers to the North Shore
• To always be inclusive and reflect North Vancouver in the work we produce and present
• To engage with North Shore culture by inviting other companies to become partners and/or resident companies at Presentation House Theatre
• To encourage a life long love of the arts through artist-in-residence programs and educational programs for North Shore youth

Presentation House Theatre is housed in the historic Presentation House Arts Centre, which has acted in many roles over its lifetime. Originally built as a school in 1902, the building became a “temporary” North Vancouver City Hall in 1913 — for 62 years. It has been a Police Station, a Justice building and housed the City’s Engineering Department until 1975. When the City of North Vancouver announced they would build a new City Hall, the North Vancouver Community Arts Council asked that the building be given to the community as an art centre for the North Shore.

The adjacent Anne MacDonald Studio was formerly St. Johns Anglican Church built in 1899. In 1973, the congregation decided to replace its original church and offered the building as a gift to the City, if it was moved to a new site. The Arts Council again recognized the benefits of the building, both for its historical value and as a character space for the arts and asked that it be added to the arts centre.  It was moved to its current home at 3rd and Chesterfield.

Executive Director, Anne MacDonald, was the driving force behind the North Vancouver Community Arts Council.  She was honoured for her tireless commitment by having the church building named the Anne MacDonald Hall. The City of North Vancouver donated the building, and capital funds were raised from the National Museums Program, the BC Community Recreational Facilities Fund, BC Ministry of Recreation and Conservation, Vancouver Foundation, District of North Vancouver, a fire insurance claim and private donations.

The Presentation House Cultural Society was created to manage the operation of the buildings, the programs of the theatre and gallery. The North Vancouver Museum and the Archives Commission were created to operate the museum.

Renovations to the gallery space and museum were completed and officially opened on September 12, 1976.

The completion of the theatre, however, posed a challenge. Funds had been exhausted. Chris Tyrell was hired with support from a Canada Council Explorations Grant and, with the added assistance of Labour Grants, and much scrounging of materials from the community, the theatre opened in July 1977 to much fanfare and excitement. After its move and careful restoration, the Anne MacDonald Hall was opened on December 11, 1978.

To this day, management of these buildings is administered by the theatre society, Presentation House Cultural Society. Presentation House Theatre takes pride in caring for these spaces, home to our staff, and the many connections, programs, and performances we create for our North Shore communities.

Learn more about the history of this land from Squamish knowledge keeper Rebecca Duncan

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Experimental Cinema

News and resources on experimental films, presentation house gallery.

Presentation House Gallery is a public gallery in North Vancouver, Canada, dedicated to photography and media art since 1981.

Events in this venue

Ruscha + bismuth: miracles and missing pieces.

Presentation House Gallery is screening three rarely shown 16mm films made by LA artist Ed Ruscha , along with a new documentary that investigates a mysterious work the artist may have made.

Dates: 

Venue: , the exhibition of a film: a project by mathieu copeland.

The film as exhibition site is at the centre of this experimental project, both curatorial and cinematographic, by French curator Mathieu Copeland. The exhibition of a film brings together visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, performers, choreographers, and writers around the question “Can an exhibition take place in a film rather than a gallery space?” While working the constraints intrinsic to feature-length film, it aims at being something other than a structuralist “epic”, or a suite of artist’s short films one after the other.

Upcoming events

• Upcoming deadlines
• Free Submission Calls
• Dominick Rivers at No Name Cinema 31/07/2024 - 19:30 ( Screenings )
• AAIFF47 Screening: Celluloid Synergy: Experimental Films From 1960s-Now 03/08/2024 - 12:00 ( Screenings )
• AD HOC 61: Visions: Gariné Torossian, in person 03/08/2024 - 19:00 ( Screenings )
• The New Film Underground Volume 11 03/08/2024 - 20:00 ( Festivals )
• One Minute Volume 12 08/08/2024 - 20:15 ( Screenings )

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• Museums & Exhibit

Polygon Gallery / Patkau Architects

• Curated by Hana Abdel
• Architects: Patkau Architects
• Area Area of this architecture project Area:  2100 m²
• Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2017
• Photographs Photographs: James Dow , Robert Stefanowicz
• Main Contractor : The Haebler Group
• Structural Engineering : Fast + Epp
• Mechanical and Electrical Engineering : Intergral Group
• Acoustical Consulting : Dan Lyzun & Associates Ltd
• Architects:  John Patkau, Patricia Patkau, Peter Suter, Mike Green, Jackie Ho, Marc Holland, Tom Schroeder, Haley Zhou
• Code Consultants:  LMDG
• City:  North Vancouver
• Country:  Canada
• Did you collaborate on this project?

Text description provided by the architects. The Polygon Gallery is the rebirth of the Presentation House Gallery, which has been a passionately independent photography and media institution in North Vancouver for more than forty years. More site-maker than site response, the building stands at the front of urban waterfront renewal where infrastructure is reimagined and culture outgrows an industrial past.

The main mass of the building is lifted from the ground plane to provide open access to both a new public plaza and a wide view of the Vancouver skyline across Burrard Inlet. Its iconic saw-toothed profile is clad in layers of mirrored stainless steel beneath expanded aluminum decking. The interplay between the two materials gives the singular mass an ephemeral depth that shifts with seasonal sunlight and evening atmosphere.

Gallery Director, Reid Shier requested gallery space free of obstacles, with floors and walls that can be cut into, ceilings from which anything could be hung in any position, access to power and media anywhere, lighting that can be natural or controlled. The main gallery is thus conceived as a ready instrument for creativity, more studio than a museum. The structural musculature of the building performs the dual purposes of lifting the gallery and providing a clear space, completely daylit from above with diffuse northern light, or darkened. A system of steel purlins provides a track for lighting, data, media, suspended works, and temporary partitions. The robust and easily patched oak flooring features a continuous central channel for ventilation, electrical, and data chases that give ready access to freestanding works and temporary partitions of any configuration.

The upper level also contains a large flexible event gallery for education, outreach, and private functions. Its entire southern wall is an operable glazed panorama overlooking Burrard Inlet and Vancouver. In addition to the fully glazed entrance and lobby, the lower level supports small retail spaces, to help diversify waterfront development. These fine-grained street-level uses to make the building an attractor for the growing social life on the city’s waterfront and share the energy of the Gallery with the public space. The plaza, so activated by the Gallery, provides a new cultural node for North Vancouver , reinforcing a sense of local identity for a small city that neighbors a larger and more prominent one.

Project gallery

Project location

Address: north vancouver, bc, canada.

Materials and Tags

• Sustainability

想阅读文章的中文版本吗?

倒放的“梳子”，多边形美术馆 / Patkau Architects

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