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Architect Bing Thom was known for thinking out of the box. And one of his most out of the box designs was for a new Vancouver Art Gallery at Larwill Park.

Thom’s vision was to suspend the gallery in mid-air above an arts complex that included a new concert hall for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, a National Gallery of Aboriginal Art, and an Asian art centre.

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A model for the art gallery looks like a cloud floating above the complex.

“It would have been an instant tourist attraction,” said Christopher Wooten, a former associate director of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

“It was really going to transform that neighbourhood.”

PNG

But the VAG’s director Kathleen Bartels didn’t want to be part of the project, because she wanted a stand-alone building. So it stalled.

“Kathleen didn’t want to play ball,” said Michael Heeney, then an associate at Thom’s firm. “The next thing we knew, she was asking the city for the site for herself.”

Photo by Malcolm Parry / PNG

The VAG’s board voted not to extendBartels’ contract last week, and on May 28 she left the facility she had run for 18 years.

The VAG has declined to give a statement on what happened with Bartels, who devoted much of her time at the VAG pursuinga new building at Larwill Park designed by the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & De Meuron.