Speeding photons wouldn’t usually belong on a list of building materials, unless you’re Patkau Architects.
The striking buildings designed by the firm – including The Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver and the Audain Art Museum in Whistler – focus light in ways that show it as fundamental element in architecture.
Patkau’s use of light is a theme throughout a new exhibit at the West Vancouver Art Museum, which is running now until July 19.
Museum curator Pantea Haghighi said she’s always been interested in John Patkau’s relationship with light.
“The minute I started talking to John at our first studio visit, light quickly became the central theme of the exhibition,” she said. “We decided to use light as a source material, as something that you can build with.
“The movement on light during the day on the wood structures of the Audian Museum, for instance, is an example of light performing changing and reiterating material,” Haghighi said. “Or the way it shines and it moves on a steel relief sculpture which lives at John’s home in West Vancouver.”
That’s what the exhibition is about: light as a source material, she said.
“Light as a building material, and light interacting with other [source materials]. And the others are concrete, wood and steel,” said Haghighi, who became the museum’s new administrator and curator in December 2024.
Throughout the Patkau exhibit are nine projects highlighting these different source materials.
Show held in conjunction with West Coast Modern Week
The art show is being held in conjunction with West Coast Modern Week, July 8 to 13.
When John and Patricia Patkau founded their firm in the 1970s, West Coast Modernism was alive and well.
A vernacular of light and wood was essential to the West Coast Modern style, as well as the works of Patkau.
“There was a desire to use wood and to bring light in. And that continues right in contemporary architecture as well,” Haghighi said.
The curator added that there’s been great interest in the show, selling out 200 tickets in four hours to an opening talk from John Patkau held last week.
“People in West Vancouver are interested in arts and culture,” Haghighi said. “I just think there’s a there’s a need and a thirst for programs like this. But, of course, John is also very much a celebrated artist and architect in our [region].”
For those missing out on last week's event, John Patkau is scheduled to speak again on July 9 during West Coast Modern Week.
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