Renovating Brutalism: The Renovation of the Museum of Anthropology

The Renovation of the Museum of Anthropology

Abstract

The Museum of Anthropology is one of Arthur Erickson's most famous designs and an outstanding example for Brutalism Architecture in Canada. Due to seismic issues of the original concrete framing, the Great Hall of the Museum was to be renovated. The original primary concrete structure could not be adequately strengthened, and it was decided to re-build this particular portion of the building on a base-isolated platform. As part of the re-build, the authors re-imagined and engineered a new structural glazing system that maintains the original design developed by Pilkington for Arthur Erickson, but employs today’s design principles for structural glass. The structural glazing landscape has evolved vastly over the five decades since the museum’s initial construction. Higher wind and seismic loads along with requirements to provide safer glazing systems have been met with advances in glazing technology, including larger format panels and stiff interlayers. Maintaining the original shape and size of the glass fittings while accommodating seismic drifts of the Great Hall and existing adjacent wing required innovative thinking, especially at the inside glass corners. Glass fins nearing 12m tall required careful consideration of site conditions and installation tolerances. The large-scale Performance Mock-Up (PMU) was replaced by a series of smaller ‘micro PMU's’ that represent key elements of the facade. The authors and hardware manufacturer developed a set of three small scale test assemblies to verify strength, drift accommodation and water tightness.