EDMONTON - Months ago, on a hot summer day in Los Angeles, architect Randall Stout and some colleagues from our northern city sat down in the sunny courtyard outside his office and designed a simulation to show what Edmonton's proposed new art gallery might look like dusted in snow.

They used white tissue paper to represent a form of frozen precipitation that may be unfamiliar to people in southern California but is common as the cold to the million hardy folks who call this home.

The concept created that day became a computer simulation, which Stout showed at a public meeting in Edmonton last week, where the four architects competing to build the city's new $48-million art gallery had come to discuss their plans.

That single image, shown as part of Stout's slide presentation, drew appreciative murmurs from the audience, and seemed to say as much about the architect as it does about the city where he will now work his magic.

It may have even helped the competition's youngest architect win the commission to build a gallery expected to transform the city's downtown arts district when it opens in 2009.

"From the moment we started thinking about snow ... we started thinking of ways to make that a positive part of the dynamic, ephemeral quality (of the project)," Stout said Thursday, moments after the gallery officially confirmed an exclusive Journal story that his design had been chosen from the four on the short list.

"We talked about reflections of sun and sky," said Stout, who was born and raised in Tennessee and has lived in Los Angeles for 16 years. "And (how) snow adds to that sense of transition the building goes through in a season."

Thursday morning's ceremony was a chance for everyone involved - those who've worked on the project for years and those who just jumped on board -- to say nice things about each other.

Community Development Minister Gary Mar was there to confirm that the province will chip in $15 million, bringing the total raised so far by the gallery to $40 million.

"Today we stand on the cusp of Alberta's second century," said Mar, "and the view from here is full of opportunity to build the kind of creative and stimulating city and province where people will love to live."

He also confirmed that the EAG will be renamed the Art Gallery of Alberta.

"It will be prestigious, it will be world-class, it will be a work of art in itself and a magnet for creativity," Mar said.

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan was there to congratulate the province, the city and the gallery, which received $10 million in January from the federal government as part of a centennial gift to the people of Alberta.

GALLERY OFFICIALS PRAISED

"I really think it's important in this city, in this country, that the building itself make an artistic statement about who we are," the Edmonton MP said.

After the ceremony, Stout praised gallery officials, saying that when the call for submissions of interest went out months ago, he was impressed with statements made by board chairman Allen Scott and executive director Tony Luppino.

"They talked about the value system of this institution, and it was so closely aligned to my personal ideologies that I thought this is the one (the commission) to go for," Stout said. "We don't chase a lot of work. We tend to try to look for relationships that we think are positive for both parties. There aren't a lot of them."

Luppino said in an interview that Stout proved during the competition just how interested he was in getting this commission.

"He came up and met with people that we didn't put him in touch with," said Luppino, who came here from Toronto in November 2003 to oversee the gallery's transformation. "Which is really very different. He came to openings, he came to see how the gallery works. Without warning. He just showed up."

CONSTRUCTION BEGINS IN 2007

Construction on the new gallery, an expansion of the existing building, won't begin until 2007, with a completion date scheduled for two years later. In the meantime, Stout will sit down with gallery officials to talk about his design and what they would like to see in the final plan.

"The last thing I would want to do is just go back to L.A. and start surging ahead," he said. "To me, the first step is a lot of discussion to see what everybody thinks is right and wrong about this scheme, including at the staff level within the museum."

Stout, who reckons he'll visit the city at least once a month for the next year or so, said his design was inspired by the city's climate, its location and, in part, by the number of travelling exhibitions it hosts.

In drafting his plans, he took a sculptural approach to the outside of the building and a "reserved and neutral" one with the inside gallery spaces, to make it easier for the curators to display permanent and visiting exhibitions.

"First and foremost," he said, "I want people to feel welcome to the structure. In my opinion, the days of very staid and Brutalist kinds of museum facades are long gone."

Stout had never visited Edmonton before the competition began and knew little about the city. But he came here several times this summer, showing a commitment that seemed to impress gallery officials.

On those visits to Edmonton, Stout said he learned much about the city and its people. He became convinced, for example, that it will be critical to better link the gallery to the city's LRT and pedway systems, which most visitors will use to reach the building on cold winter days.

His design, which includes glass, patinaed zinc and stainless steel, was influenced by the curves of the river that winds through the city, and by the northern lights sometimes seen in the winter sky.

"There's a real sense of commitment to community here, which is an attitude I have a lot of affection for," he said. "And a sense of reaching out beyond the normal 'art crowd' that might be drawn to this building."

rmcconnell@thejournal.canwest.com