Danish architecture firm wins contract to design Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre
Jury selecting the proposal included Commissioner Eva Aariak and elder Piita Irniq
A rendered image of the Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre by Danish firm Dorte Mandrup Architects. The 55,000-square-foot facility to be built in Iqaluit will provide a venue for exhibitions, performances, workshops and other programming. (Image courtesy of Dorte Mandrup Architects)
A Danish architecture firm won the design contract for the Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre, according to a recent news release from the Inuit Heritage Trust.
Dorte Mandrup Architects, which led the proposal, was awarded the contract for the centre which will be built in Iqaluit and is meant “to honour the Government of Canada’s commitment to the Nunavut Agreement and Bill C-15, the UNDRIP Act.”
Seven other organizations are part of the proposal and include Polar Outfitting as the Inuit consulting firm and Arctic UAV & Panaq Design for model building.
A jury voted for the winning proposal in Ottawa on May 29. It included the territory’s commissioner Eva Aariak and elder Piita Irniq.
“We have waited many years for this opportunity and have never been this close to realizing our dream,” Inuit Heritage Trust executive director William Beveridge said in the release.
He said the centre will help bring back “items made by our ancestors” that are currently stored in southern facilities.
“With few opportunities for Inuit to engage with these items, we continue to be disconnected from this important part of our cultural heritage,” Beveridge said.
“But there is growing momentum for an Inuit-owned and operated facility.”
The 55,000-square-foot facility will provide a venue for exhibitions, performances, workshops and other programming.
Jury members chose the proposal by Dorte Mandrup Architects in particular because of its emphasis on the surrounding landscape, the idea of a living green roof, and a structure that will have a limited carbon footprint.
“Jury members felt that Mandrup heard and understood community perspectives regarding Inuit traditional knowledge and the healing potential for the NIHC,” the release said.
“They appreciated the reference to Inuit wayfinding and integration into the landscape.”
The Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre project has been spearheaded by the Inuit Heritage Trust. Members from the trust, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., Qikiqtani Inuit Association, Kitikmeot Inuit Association and Kivalliq Inuit Association are part of a steering committee overseeing the project.
Both NTI and QIA have committed $5 million each for the initiative so far.
We got the lawyer making factory up and running with USask. Nurse/Teacher/Environmental Techs etc factory at Arctic College.
Why we don’t have a pile of Inuit architects? The white guys typically running the architecture show in NU of course wouldn’t whole-heartedly encourage that.
A continuous diet of grievance and ethnic national fantasy produces what we see here, delusional, cartoonish understandings of how the world works and where our limited resources should be allocated and what the likely product of that might be.
Let’s funnel millions into an architecture school then force government and any organization who wishes to build in Nunavut to use them (this has to happen to make this viable at all). We will endure the higher cost and undoubted mediocrity it will produce in the name of the cause.
But ah, those white architects, they just won’t have it… clearly an existential threat looms on their horizon. Where will they ever work again?
Behold your bastard children, Nunatsiaq. They sup at your teat, let them be your shame.
Threatened by there being a couple Inuit architects I see…
No one is asking for a full architecture school. Much more support in sending Inuit to school, yes.
Your negativity is concerning. You work in Nunavut? This prevalent thinking amongst the transients is continually concerning.
The transients get triggered when you mention the facts.
W need more plumbers , carpenters , mechanic etc , not architecs
We can do with more plumbers, carpenters, too. Yes.
But it’s not an either/or situation. There can be Inuit architects too, as well as more trades. Both together are possible.
I want to see inuk astronauts before architects .
But the transients! Think of the transients!
They are the MoSt ImPoRTaNt.
Probably for the same reason we don’t have a whole slew of other professionals – lack of basic educational achievement needed to begin study in these fields and a lack of numbers to make it educationally feasible to run such programs.
How much does it cost to set up an architecture program? It’ll take a person 6-8 years to qualify as one and how big a demand is there for such a program? Let’s say you get 15 applicants, how many will you graduate in 6-8 years? Is it worth the money invested?
Home-grown architects are a nice to have, but not an essential. Nurses, engineers, teachers, etc., would be much higher on my list of professionals to worry about.
Architects are just as important in building as engineers. It is not just a “nice to have” situation. With the amount of buildings that Nunavut needs, the backlash against the idea of Inuit architects is concerning.
There is no backlash against the idea of Inuit architects, the backlash is against a paranoid delusion that a cabal of white professionals is terrified of letting Inuit into the profession.
“Home-grown architects are a nice to have, but not an essential.”
“W need more plumbers , carpenters , mechanic etc , not architecs”
“Let’s funnel millions into an architecture school then force government and any organization who wishes to build in Nunavut to use them”
“Absolutely…. that should be next on the list of programs to water down for Nunavut.”
These are all example of backlash against the idea of Inuit architects.
There is no paranoid delusion. Of course the transient architects wouldn’t want to be replaced, and wouldn’t go ahead and start a program to replace their spot at the trough. Why would they do that? It’s not in their mandate. We need programs to get Inuit in school and into these jobs in Nunavut. I’m sorry that offends you.
Umm, Bud, ‘home-grown’ does not necessarily equal Inuit. No one in his or her right mind in this day and age cares what the ethnicity of our architects are. Does the building stand? Is it safe? It is a cool design? Sounds good – don’t care what DNA you carry, just provide the services.
How come this is so hard for people to understand?
So, all you aspiring Nunavut architects – get a learnin’.
You have misread the situation. This is not a backlash to Inuit architects at all, this is a backlash to how lightly you take educating architects and how low you set the bar for architects capable of building a 55 000 sq ft facility. Both situations, by the way, are the direct result of the constant watering down of secondary and post secondary education in Nunavut.
Absolutely…. that should be next on the list of programs to water down for Nunavut.
Which programs do you consider “watered down”? You think the law school graduates have a watered down degree?
Well to answer your question….. all of them are. It starts in Kindergarten and it never ends. Need proof? All you have to do is look at the admission requirements of post secondary and compare them to existing legit institutions.
For example: Finning requires far more academically to join it’s Heavy Duty Mechanic program than Arctic College requires of Nursing students.
It’s pretty obvious honestly.
You have no idea, but thanks for letting us all know that.
When and where is it to be built?
We got a bunch of idiots running the federal government that is mortgaging the futures of our unborn children/grandchildren.
Do not be surprised if this project gets shelved in two years.
In Iqaluit, and in the future from now
This to me sounds unrealistic, even with all the players purportedly involved. Sounds more like wishful thinking out loud by “the jury”. I hope it is realized, but other than the measly $5M by NTI and some others, more “right on” than allocating funds, where will the money come from?
I believe the initial design work funded by our Inuit Organizations came from mining royalty revenues.
This is not entirely clear as our organizations are not keen to admit that is where they get tens of millions in funds from for some reason.
Mining royalties are particularly useful because Inuit Orgs can do what they want with this money (as opposed to federal and territorial funds that must be used for a specific purpose set out by government).
“Both NTI and QIA have committed $5 million each for the initiative so far”
This project is so ridiculous that can’t be happening. A measly $10 million pledged. I guess the rest will come from the feds or maybe they will do a fundraiser on facebook or bake sale.
A budget so far of $10M for 55k§ feet- $181/Sq ft. The other 2 RIO’s not contributing so far means it will mainly be sea life of the Inuit. The Caribou Inuit often missed and little understood will likely not be recognized.
We need our two other RIO’s becoming involved to make it a truly Nunavut Museum.
Though many may have their doubts, it would be a start with well informed and educated curators.
Will this building have much-needed dormitories for the homeless and also much-needed workshops to train multi-generational welfare recipients for, yes, working on projects like this?