by David Dick-Agnew
Azure, Feb 8, 2016
(Image: Snaking along a side of the Trent-Severn Canal in Peterborough, Ontario, the low-slung, green-roofed building will connect to the water. Photo: Heneghan Peng Architects, Kearns Mancini Architects)
In January, Dublin’s Heneghan Peng Architects, working with Toronto firm Kearns Mancini Architects, unveiled their plans for the future home of the Canadian Canoe Museum – a landscape-hugging building that snakes along a canal in Peterborough, Ontario. On its completion in 2020, the Canadian Canoe Museum will hold the world’s largest collection of canoes and kayaks, adding to the significance of the Peterborough Lift Lock National Historic Site. The concept, selected by a two-stage international competition, will replace the current museum’s home in a warehouse-like structure on a nondescript service plaza.
The project plays to both firms’ strengths. HPA is no stranger to building with tourists in mind; it’s perhaps best known for the Grand Egyptian Museum under construction in Cairo, next to the Pyramids of Giza – one of the most visited tourist attractions on earth. KMA, for its part, is co-architect (with Patkau Architects) of Toronto’s Fort York Visitor Centre, a project that bears some resemblance to the CCM in both typology and historical context.
“Because the numbers are smaller than in tourist-heavy locations [like Cairo],” Roisin Heneghan told Azure, “the Canadian Canoe Museum will be very connected with its visitors.” Read more…