If you hope to build a facility in a rural northern Alberta community that will draw worldwide attention as a one-of-a-kind stage for Indigenous art and artifacts, it’s nice to win a design award right out of the gates.

 

The concept plans for a free-standing cultural space and learning centre at the Lac La Biche Portage College campus has won a Canadian Architect 2025 Award of Excellence.

 

The plans include gallery settings for Indigenous art and artifacts, spaces for classroom and community learning, climate-controlled archives for more than 2,000 pieces already catalogued in the Portage College Museum of Aboriginal Peoples’ Art and Artifacts (MOAPAA), as well as gathering halls and ceremonial spaces. The features will be held within a circular building design, complete with a rooftop garden area.

 

Still only a concept, it’s an ambitious project – one that has been a dream in the making for 50 years since the first pieces of art were given to the College for teaching and education purposes. Over the decades, the MOAPAA collection has grown, and includes the world’s only permanent display of works from the Professional Native Indian Artists Inc (PNIAI) – also known as the Indian Group of Seven. Founded in the early 1970s in Winnipeg, the PNIAI was an independent Indigenous artist collective that included Jackson Beardy, Eddy Cobiness, Alex Janvier, Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig, Carl Ray, and Joseph M Sánchez.

 

The design process for the project was guided by a team including Sánchez, who is the last living PNIAI member and also the MOAPAA’s chief curator, Dr. Donna Feledichuk, the museum’s director, and Elder and Pipe Holder Ruby Sweetman, who is also the coordinator of the Portage College Indigenous Arts programming.

 

The architectural design was developed by SPECTACLE Bureau for Architecture and Urbanism Inc. SPECTACLE also ran a work-integrated learning studio in which students in the Master of Architecture program at the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscapes undertook early design research for the project.

 

A four-person panel of design-influenced jurors from Canada and the United Kingdom selected the Portage College submission as an award winner. The award is part of an annual selection process through the Canadian Architect magazine. The Portage College project was one of nine winners selected from across Canada from more than 180 submissions.

 

According to the Portage College submission, “the building will form a nexus of Indigenous Art by artists from across North America. The building’s elegant veil responds to the verticality of the reconstituted Quaking Aspen Forest and moves gracefully together with its environment. Seven elliptical paths wrap around the building, each representing one of the seven members of the PNIAI. The paths provide access to the surrounding landscape and art installations, as well as to the roof-top garden that incorporates healing and ceremony plants. The flexible layout provides possibilities for relations, connections, and overlaps between the artwork. The building can serve as a space for dialogue and reconciliation on Treaty 6 territory.”

 

Bolstered by the award win, the cultural space concept is in the very early stages of fund-sourcing and budget exploration.

 

“The MOAPAA is conceived holistically as a space for dialogue and reconciliation.”

Sonia Gagné, Canadian Architect Juror

 

“As a curator I view art and life as beyond the lens of champagne receptions and white box museums in concrete and steel towers. Ideas of commercial success are exchanged for truthful dialogue. Art is not an object. Great art seeks spiritual communication.”

Joseph M. Sanchez, Chief MOAPAA curator

 

“A free-standing museum would add to the Indigenous artistry already on display in the hallways of Portage College. We are very proud of the walking museum we currently have within our college. I think more exposure can only draw more inspiration and more education about Indigenous arts and culture.”

Ruby Sweetman, Portage College Elder