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• 1 2019-11-27T00:49:24-08:00 National Gallery of Canada - Seeing the Colonnade Through a Semiological Lens by Ricky Tong 24 Ricky plain 2019-12-07T02:07:39-08:00 It struck me that you should really go through some kind of procession to make your way into something as important as the National Gallery … You find yourself ascending. There is excitement to the ascent. To me, it often has a religious feeling to it: Jacob’s Ladder, Jacob’s Dream. Ascent offers -I don’t want to say purification, but there’s both an intellectual and emotional uplifting … you unburden yourself at the checkroom. And then you ascend. It’s a ritual, a ceremony. And I think it excites people.”(Ord 2003, 21)
  
  Intro     
  Art galleries are important roles in society today. Museums and art galleries of this scale “are regularly described as the ‘cathedrals’ of our time” as they serve the role of introducing and enriching visitors in the world of art. Through curated exhibits and museum guides, visitors can learn about the history and context of the piece. Like art pieces, architecture is a design piece curated to fit the environment, the client’s needs, and the architect’s personal taste and ideas.  The National Gallery of Canada, designed by Moshe Safdie and opened in 1988 is National Gallery’s sixth and final home. In the design of the circulation, the idea of a procession or ritual was emphasized. In an interview by Dan Turner, the ascent up the ramp almost a “religious feeling” reminding him of the story of Jacob’s Ladder and Jacob’s Dream. The colonnade leading to the great hall and the concourse highlights the importance of procession and the biblical history of ascent in architecture. By walking through the colonnade and examining the space through a semiological stance, we discover how the National Gallery has implemented and modernized familiar elements from sacral architecture to curate the almost religious ascent towards the main galleries.
  
  From Outside
  The colonnade experience starts from the exterior. With an “overall shape [suggesting] the profile of a gothic cathedral as seen from the side” and the “concrete pylons [suggesting] the external role played in such cathedrals by flying buttresses”(Ord 2003, 5), the facade foreshadows the interior experience that awaits.
  Entrance
  “you unburden yourself of all your weights at the checkroom. And then you ascend. It’s a ritual, a ceremony. And I think it excites people”(Ord 2003,21)
  As you walk in from the main entrance, visitors enter a glass edifice. The height from outside imposes on visitors but passing the glass vestibule the half-height decorative panels scale the space down. The first stop is the coat room leaving your belongings to the staff “unburdening yourself” before the “ritual” of ascending the ramp. In the main entrance the true height is covered by the shading panels with gaps hinting a taller space. Because of the glass prism’s dominant presence, its symmetry and order are accentuated, highlighting the first stage of the procession to the main gallery.
  
  Enter the Colonnade
  
  National Museums and galleries are major projects representing national pride and culture and the emphasis towards the ceremonial quality of circulation and exhibition was the basis of the colonnade’s design.  During the design phase of building the National Gallery, Safdie wanted to create a sense of place similar to those found in gothic cathedrals and monumental sacral architecture. (Murray 1996,21) He mentioned the use of detail and the integration of architectural elements to enhance the spatial presence of the building like flying buttresses and soaring arches in gothic cathedrals.The first thing you see when entering the colonnade is the great length and height dwarfing the generous width of the ramp. Using tall slender rectangular columns, a sense of tremendous sense of verticality was achieved. By gabling the roof the sense of height was only accentuated. However, during the day, the incredible height did not compromise the openness of the space as a monolithic glass façade on the south side allows for near uninterrupted views, bringing the exterior space to the interior.  It is during the night when the spectacle of height can be enjoyed. With the darkness of the outside looking like an opaque wall, the bright and tall interior space dominates any visitor’s view, creating a dynamic experience throughout the day. In gothic cathedrals, height represented one’s closeness to God, and Safdie’s attention to the height, ascent, and perception of height is a testament to the influence of sacral architecture in his design. 
  As you walk through the ramp, slowly ascending towards the great hall, the full height and view of the colonnade are the focus. Views of the gallery are not present as large pink granite walls separate the “extroverted” ramp from the enclosed and introverted space of the exhibits. The tall paired concrete columns cut the view to the exterior in regular intervals and cast shadows on the floor seemingly dividing the ramp into rooms, further emphasizing the height as it’s the only dimension that remained intact. Like Gothic cathedrals, this procession through a colonnade leads to the most important part of the building, in this case, the Galleries.
  
  How each element of the ramp acts as signage
  Through the act of ascending the ramp, the sense of anticipation and wonder builds up. With the use of light and shadow, the sense of divinity like those of gothic cathedrals is created. In addition, the height also adds a sense of tension (Augustin, 2010) as the uninterrupted vertical columns extend to the gabled glass roof. Once you reach the summit of the ramp prior to entering the great hall, a brief sense of comfort can be felt as lower ceiling heights are much less intimidating. (Augustin, 2010) Throughout the circulation spaces, the Safdie’s use of ceiling height and relative hallway width allows for easy separation of space without the need for any additional signage. In addition to height, shadows create an experience but also a visual queue to the passage of time and space. By using the shadows and columns to separate space into visually smaller pieces, a “rhythmic movement” (Talbot-Stanaway, 39) is achieved. That rhythm can then be interpreted naturally as visual feedback as the visitor can experience the movement through light and dark.  Once you reach the summit where a larger area of light is present, signalling a grand hall, which is the Great Hall.
  
  Materials and furniture as signage
  Another strategy that Safdie uses in the Colonnade to define space and enhance the experience of ascending the ramp is the choice of materials and location of the benches.
  Beginning with the material, Safdie uses pink granite blocks lined the walls giving a rough, almost mountainous texture (Turner 1989, 6). It symbolized was specially mined in Toudessac Quebec as this is the National Gallery of Canada so all materials should be representative of Canadian trade. This gives the galleries on the right a heavy and powerful presence as you go up the ramp. For the ramp, the same granite was used but tiled, resembling exterior interlocking patterns. This allowed visitors to easily identify what was public circulation space by contrasting exhibit spaces with carpet and hardwood flooring.
  Blocks of pink granite with a black seating pad were placed between the columns served as seats while visually emphasizing the passage of space at a more human scale. This idea, however, wasn’t received well by critics as they described the colonnade as a “crystal palace, careless of works of art.”(Boggs 1985, 205) This criticism was quickly defended by Jean Sutherland Boggs, the head of the construction of the gallery. She described the colonnade as an “external street” isolated from the stringent climate-controlled galleries.
  This ramped design early on had some opposition as some curators believe that the art should be present upon entering the gallery. It was only after the Prime Minister casted his vote for continuing the design that the glass avoided becoming solid opaque walls. (ref NGC Safdie video) During that time, Canada was developing its own identity as a free democratic country. The motto of the National Museums of Canada was “Decentralization and Democratization” meaning that all cultural resources obtained by the museums should be exposed to as many Canadians as possible to educate citizens of their national heritage. (Ord 2003, 247-249) The glass would allow people to be more connected to the Gallery through visual means while celebrating the circulation space and generating interest through the knowledge that people are ascending the ramp to an unknown celebrated space.
  Once the visitors reach the summit of the ramp, they are greeted with a view of the Parliament and the Ottawa River beyond Nepean Point through the grandeur of the great hall.
  Designed as a “friendly” space, the 43.6m high ceiling (Murray 1996, 164) is supported by several clusters of four columns, creating a “hollow” column, thus reducing the monumentality and bringing the space closer to the human scale. There are also shading devices on the ceiling which serves as both ornament and function. The shadows, as a result, split up the large room, further reducing the monumentality, and enhancing the friendly inviting experience.
  
  Conclusion
  The National Gallery was designed as a celebratory building. It provided visitors a way to experience art by creating a special processional route through the colonnade, into the great hall finally the concourse into the galleries.  By using different methods of building design influenced by Gothic cathedrals, Safdie was able to design a religious “uplifting” experience while maintaining legibility in wayfinding through the use of slender concrete columns, glass, the patterned concrete ramp, and pink granite walls. 
  
  
  Bibliography
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