One mural sought, other not

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/01/2010 (5925 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The University of Manitoba wants to acquire the massive piece of public art adorning the south end of Richardson International Airport — but the companion work at the north end of the doomed terminal still needs a home.

The U of M is talking with the Winnipeg Airports Authority about obtaining Structurist Relief In Fifteen Parts, one of the two largest artworks commissioned for what was originally Winnipeg International Airport in the 1960s.

The Eli Bornstein work, a series of white panels covered in metal cubes, could find a home at the university after the existing Richardson passenger terminal closes later this year, U of M spokeswoman Leah Janzen confirmed Tuesday.

But John Graham’s Northern Lights, the aluminum-and-plexiglass mosaic at the north end of the passenger terminal, has no potential suitor, raising the prospect it could be destroyed when the 46-year-old structure that houses it is demolished.

The Winnipeg Airports Authority plans to knock down the airport’s existing glass-and-steel passenger terminal, which architects consider a rare example of mid-20th-century modern design, when the airport’s new passenger terminal opens later this year. The airport is in the midst of a $672-million expansion that includes a passenger terminal designed by Cesar Pelli, whose credits include the Petronas Towers in Malaysia.

The Winnipeg Airports Authority decided to demolish the existing terminal after a request for proposals to reuse the building failed to yield a single plan. Last year, the WAA cancelled plans to assess the historic and artistic value of the terminal after the private corporation learned it was not subject to rules that require federally owned buildings to undergo heritage assessments.

The only proposal for the property is a Western Canada Aviation Museum plan to build itself a new home on the site of the former terminal.

The Heritage Canada Foundation, an Ottawa-based non-profit group, has been lobbying Transport Canada to save the terminal and its artwork, to no avail.

"We continue to advocate finding an adaptive reuse for the terminal," executive director Natalie Bull said Tuesday. "It’s really one big art installation. The terminal and the art are inseparable. The art will lessen in value if it’s removed from its context."

No plans have been made for the two large murals at either end of the terminal, said WAA spokeswoman Christine Alongi, who declined to comment on the U of M’s interest in the Bornstein piece.

The airports authority is trying to find some means of reusing building materials from the existing terminal, she said. No demolition plans have been filed with the City of Winnipeg, a property department spokeswoman confirmed.

The Richardson passenger terminal is the most significant modernist building facing demolition in Winnipeg, said Bull, whose organization placed the structure on a top-10 list of endangered Canadian buildings in 2008.

The brutalist-style Public Safety Building on Princess Street could also face the wrecking ball after the Winnipeg Police Service moves into its new home on Graham Avenue later this decade.

Winnipeg, which boasts an unusual collection of architecturally significant modernist buildings, must broaden its notion of what constitutes heritage buildings, Bull said.

According to her organization, the only modernist buildings to enjoy some level of heritage protection in this city are downtown’s Winnipeg Clinic and the Manitoba Theatre Centre in the East Exchange.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca