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Exterior design for Place des Arts revealed

Construction set to begin at the end of spring

After 10 years of planning, the minds behind the yet-to-be-built Place des Arts in downtown Sudbury have revealed its design.

The four-storey, 40,000-square-foot building, which is being built at the corner of Elgin and Larch streets north of Medina Lane, will be home to eight French-language cultural organizations. It will have bold, dynamic lines in a modern design with reflections of Northern Ontario's industrial past and present, said Stéphane Gauthier, president of Place des Arts du Grand Sudbury.

“This project has been a long time coming,” Gauthier said Friday, after revealing the exterior design of the building to the public. “We've spent 10 years working on this, but the community has been dreaming and hoping for this for 50 years.”

Gauthier called the Place des Arts a “flagship” building, inspired by the driving force of the Nouvel-Ontario cultural movement and “carried along by a whole generation's will to make it happen.”

The outside of the building will be made of a rich material with colours typical of ore from Northern Ontario — corten steel. Corten steel forms a stable rust-like appearance after several years exposure to weather.

“We really wanted a building that isn't entirely new,” Gauthier said. “The glass is new, and it's very inviting, but at the same time, the steel is very robust and indicative of the industrial past and present of Sudbury. We're really eager to show the inside, but we just aren't quite ready to do that yet.”

Place des Arts will house the seven arts and culture organizations: Carrefour francophone de Sudbury, Centre franco-ontarien de folklore, Theatre du Nouvel-Ontario, Éditions Prise de parole, Concerts La Nuit sur l'étang, Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario and Salon du livre du Grand Sudbury.

The building will also be home to an early childhood arts centre with room for 15 children per day, a bistro, a 120-seat multifunction studio, a concert hall with about 300 seats, and a contemporary art gallery and gift and book shop.

It is expected Place des Arts will host 850 activities every year, with 50,000 visitors in the first year alone.

“We are creating a space that will give us the opportunity to make even more dramatic changes,” Gauthier said. 

The site has already been prepared, and Phase 2 will begin at the end of spring, with the official opening date slated for fall or the end of 2020.

“So far, we've been pretty much on schedule within the budget,” Gauthier said. “This project gets people excited, but it's not just a Francophone project. It's bringing together so many people and organizations, because this will draw a lot of people to the downtown, and to Sudbury as a whole.”

Minister of Francophone Affairs Caroline Mulroney was on hand for the unveiling on Friday. She is quick to admit she's not an expert on architecture, but called Place des Arts a “beautiful building.”

“It's important for projects of this size to receive support from the different levels of government,” Mulroney said following the unveiling. 

“We have a stake in making sure, from a cultural standpoint, that we're supporting projects like this so this culture can continue to grow and be nurtured. I feel like the designers got a lot of the natural elements right, and I love how bright and open it will be.”
 


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Arron Pickard

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