Using the Former Canadian War Museum to Its Full Potential: The Global
Centre for Pluralism
Located in Ottawa and drawing inspiration from the Canadian experience, the
Global Centre for Pluralism is a national institution with global reach. Working
with national and international partners around the world, its mission is to
produce, collect and disseminate applicable knowledge and know-how about the
values, policies and practices that underpin pluralist societies. Through
research, education and exchange, the Centre will work with champions of
pluralism worldwide to foster peaceful, stable, multicultural democracies in
which each individual, irrespective of cultural, religious or ethnic
differences, is able to realize his or her full potential as a citizen.
The Centre is being established in Ottawa with significant financial and
intellectual support from the Government of Canada. As well as contributing $30
million toward the endowment fund, the Government of Canada will participate in
the governance of the Centre through the joint selection of the Board of
Directors. In turn, His Highness the Aga Khan, 49th Imam of Ismaili Muslims, is
contributing $30 million toward the endowment fund and toward the acquisition
and refurbishment of a suitable facility to house the Centre.
Careful functional and situational analyses of the available sites have been
undertaken. As a result of this review process, it has been determined that the
former Canadian War Museum at 330 Sussex Drive is the only available property in
Ottawa of sufficient size, public stature, and adaptability, with the necessary
proximity to amenities and appropriate mix of indoor and outdoor spaces, to
accommodate a major new institution of this kind.
How the Centre will use 330 Sussex Drive
The federal heritage building located at 330 Sussex Drive is an extremely
good fit – in functional, spatial, and symbolic terms – for the Global Centre
for Pluralism. The building has housed two significant national institutions:
the Dominion Archives, which occupied the building from 1904 to 1967, and the
Canadian War Museum, which moved to its new facilities in 2005. Each of these
federal institutions, in different ways, helped Canadians preserve and
understand their own history and share Canada’s story with the world.
The Global Centre for Pluralism will honour and perpetuate this tradition.
The Canadian experience of building and sustaining a pluralist society is one of
the main sources of inspiration for the Centre, and the reason for its
establishment in Ottawa. Sharing Canada’s experience with culturally divided
societies throughout the world, and helping Canadians understand and further
their own achievements, will form a significant part of the Centre’s mandate.
Conceived as a national institution with global reach, the Centre will also
preserve and extend the former war museum’s legacy as a public facility. As well
as developing research and educational programs for citizens of other countries,
the Centre will offer a range of innovative public and cultural programs to
Canadians designed to deepen their understanding of pluralism in their own and
other national contexts. As such, the building itself will remain very much in
the public domain, enhancing the quality of life of the community in which it
sits as well as the national community more broadly.
To achieve its full potential the Centre requires a permanent facility with
an established public profile commensurate with the importance attributed to the
work, both by Canada and other countries in the developed and developing worlds.
It also requires a facility with sufficient space to realize its full mandate as
an internationally recognized centre of research, learning, dialogue and
cultural exchange that can serve as a neutral gathering place for diverse
peoples from across Canada and around the world.
The Centre will use the space within the former war museum to its full
potential. Fully wired classrooms, seminar rooms and a computer learning lab
will support the Centre’s major research and learning programs. A flexible range
of meeting spaces will be available for hosting small and large roundtables,
dialogues, and conferences. A small but innovative research library will form
the core of the Centre, supporting its development as an international centre of
excellence for applied pluralism studies. Space will also be needed to
accommodate the Centre’s human and technical infrastructures.
To enhance the experience of visitors to the Centre from Ottawa and beyond,
several significant public spaces will also be developed for exhibitions and
performances. These spaces will include:
- a large foyer/reception area with flexible exhibition spaces to showcase
artistic and
cultural expressions of different kinds, including the visual arts and
exhibits exploring
historical and contemporary cultural issues;
- a small professional theatre to accommodate programs of cultural events
that could
include music, dance and theatre performances, film showings, a public
lecture series,
and so on;
- a small but dynamic research library, with an extensive digital
collection that can be
disseminated online, to support the Centre’s development as an international
centre of
excellence for applied pluralism studies; and
- the existing outdoor plaza, where passers-by will be engaged creatively
with the ideas and values that underpin the Centre, as well as Canada as a
nation.
In addition to these physical spaces, the Centre’s bilingual website will
provide an additional avenue for Canadians and others to access Centre programs
and resources.
In all of these ways – as a centre of research and learning, as a neutral
space for dialogue and exchange, and as a gathering place where Canadians can
learn and express themselves – the Centre will preserve and build on the former
war museum’s legacy as a public space and contribute substantially to the local
community.
Impact on Local Environs
The Global Centre for Pluralism will have an immediate and positive impact on
its local environs as well as on the National Capital Region as a whole. In and
around the Byward Market, the Centre will add substantially to the
neighbourhood’s existing institutional, diplomatic and commercial uses.
Institutions
A major new institution dedicated to telling Canada’s story to the world is
an extremely appropriate use for a structure sandwiched between two federal
tourist attractions: the National Art Gallery of Canada and the Royal Canadian
Mint. Both of these federal facilities will benefit greatly from the foot
traffic generated by the Centre. The Centre will also complement the Notre Dame
Cathedral, one of Ottawa’s most striking architectural artifacts of the
mid-nineteenth century and a major tourist attraction, which is located across
the street. Overall, the symbolism of locating a major institution dedicated to
peaceful human development in a former war museum will not be lost on patrons
visiting these established institutions or on passers-by.
International Corridor
At this location, the Centre will also serve as an eminently suitable gateway
to the international corridor of Confederation Boulevard which extends northward
along Sussex Drive. The location of a national institution with a global mandate
and reach at this juncture of Sussex Drive will create a synergy with the
existing diplomatic institutions already in the vicinity, including the
embassies of the United States of America, Kuwait, Japan, Malaysia, and Saudi
Arabia, as well as with Canada’s own Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Economic Impact
A location adjacent to Ottawa’s lively Byward Market will have reciprocal
benefits for the Centre and the many small businesses that have made this area
one of the busiest and most successful commercial districts in the downtown
core. First and foremost, the Centre will draw people into the area.
International visitors – among them legislators, jurists, educators, bankers,
researchers, development practitioners, journalists, community activists – will
come to the Centre to participate in Centre programs. Canadians from across the
country will visit the Centre to participate in international conferences,
continuing education courses, workshops, training programs, and study tours. The
Centre will also draw in local residents for cultural events and performances
and other kinds of public programming.
As well as adding to the cosmopolitan milieu of the Market area, the Centre
will have a significant economic impact on the National Capital Region as a
major new consumer of various local services, including hotels, restaurants and
bars, and transportation.
Conserving a Historic Landmark
The property at 330 Sussex Drive is a well known historic landmark on
Canada’s Confederation Boulevard. Erected between 1904 and 1925, the building
was first classified as a historic site in 1955 and later re-designated as a
Classified Federal Heritage Building in 1987. According to this valuation, its
historical importance resides in its association with the archives and the war
museum; its architecture, notably its main facades, successful structural design
and plan, and Tudor-Gothic style; and its fine setting on Sussex Drive adjacent
to the Royal Canadian Mint and the National Gallery of Canada.
The Global Centre for Pluralism will be a good steward for such structure.
The Aga Khan Development Network has extensive and award-winning experience
restoring and rehabilitating heritage structures and public spaces in historic
cities and neighbourhoods. Our experience has shown that preserving and adapting
heritage environments and buildings for new uses can spur social, economic and
cultural development. The refurbishment of the former war museum will give shape
and form to the Global Centre for Pluralism that makes clear its mission to
build on the past while looking forward to the future.
Preserving Public Memory
The former war museum building has a long history as a place where Canadians
have gathered to forge a shared national memory and to situate themselves in the
world. As the home of the Global Centre for Pluralism, the building will
continue to serve as a prism through which Canadians can engage with – and
contribute to – the evolution of Canada as a model pluralist society for the
21st century.
More generally, the symbolism of housing an institution dedicated to peaceful
human development in a former war museum is a powerful use of this historic and
much-loved building. The Centre’s mission will honour the memory of the
generations of men and women who fought for Canada and for peace, while its
innovative public spaces and programs will perpetuate the building’s original
use in the local and national community as a public gathering place of global
importance.
Global Centre for Pluralism October 18, 2006
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