Choice of L.A. architect to be announced today

Rick McConnell and Shawn Ohler, The Edmonton Journal -

EDMONTON -- Los Angeles architect Randall Stout will be named today as the winner of an international competition to design the city's new $48-million art gallery, The Journal has learned.

Officials will also announce at a news conference this morning that the gallery is to be renamed the Art Gallery of Alberta and will recieve a much-needed $15-million funding boost from the provincial government.

Sources say the name change and crucially timed investment from the province are meant to reflect Edmonton's standing as the capital city and "the important part the gallery can play in Alberta's cultural fabric."

As late as Tuesday, the art gallery still hadn't received word that the province was prepared to help fund the project. But at this morning's news conference, Community Development Minister Gary Mar is expected to hand over the money to gallery officials, who will also announce that Stout has won the high profile design competition.

Today's announcement brings to a close a competition that began months ago with submissions from more than two dozen architects from around the world.

That list was shortened in April to four international firms. In May, the finalists made presentations at a Royal Architectural Institute of Canada conference held in Edmonton.

Last month, the firms submitted detailed plans, drawings and models, which have been on display at the gallery. Each firm sent representatives to a public meeting last week attended by more than 400 people.

The gallery's seven-member selection jury then made its recommendation to the board.

Earlier this week the gallery issued a statement saying the four competitors had all been asked to make travel arrangements to return to Edmonton today "to be present for the official announcement of the winning design should their submission be selected."

Just before 8 p.m. Wednesday, Stout checked in at the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald. The Los Angeles architect said he'd been asked by the gallery not to talk about the competition before this mornings anouncement.

Stout did say he made several trips to Edmonton this summer to familiarize himself with the city.

"I look forward to doing more of that," he said.

A rising star in his field, Stout, 47, was the youngest architect on the short list. His recent work includes the Art Museum of Western Virginia, now under construction in Roanoke, VA., and a 29,000 sq.-foot addition to the Hunter Museum of American Art, which opened in April in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Born and raised in Tennessee, Stout was valedictorian for his bachelor of architecture class at the University of Tennessee in 1981. He was awarded a Pittman Fellowship during his master's program studies at Rice University.

After graduation, he spent seven years working with famed American architect Frank Gehry, whose numerous designs include the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

A proponent of environmentally responsible architecture, Stout has said his design for the Edmonton gallery will save four million cubic pounds of carbon dioxide each year, compared to conventional construction methods.

Two years ago, Stout's firm received the American Institute of Architects' Top Ten Green award for its design of the Steinhude Sea Recreational Facility in Germany.

In his design for a new gallery that will change the face of Edmonton's arts district, Stout has said he drew inspiration from the aurora borealis and from Inuit stone sculptures called inukshuks. His plan, which will add to the existing building, calls for the use of expanses of glass and swooping curves of patinaed zinc and stainless steel.

Stout was selected from a list that included the world's most famous female architect, the flamboyant Iraqi-born Zaha Hadid, winner of the prestigous 2004 Pritzker Prize.

Also in the competition were controversial British designer Will Alsop, whose only Canadian building is the Sharp Centre for Design at the Ontario College of Art, which is raised 26 metres above street level on 12 multicoloured stilts.

Canada was represented on the list by Vancouver's Arthur Erickson, whose long and distinguished career includes the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Wash., which opened three years ago, and the Museum of Anthropology on the University of British Columbia campus, which opened in 1976.

With the province's $15 million, the Edmonton art gallery has now raised $40 million for its new building, including $10 million from the federal government and $6 million from the city of Edmonton.

Another $9 million, including $5 million from Edmonton philanthropists John and Barbara Poole, has come from private donors, despite the fact the private fundraising campaign hasn't officially begun.

The construction tab for the new gallery, which will be added to the Brutalist-style box on the northeast corner of Sir Winston Churchill Square, is expected to be $27 million to $30 million.

10/13/2005