alliance française new building makes it the largest independent cultural facility in b.c.
the culmination of a 10 year-long project means vancouver's alliance française is the organization's third largest site in north america
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alliance française (af) opened the doors of its first vancouver location at 6161 cambie street in 1968. fifty-six years later, the global not-for-profit inaugurates its brand new facility in that same location and which is the largest independent cultural facility in the province.
the 30,000-square-foot-building will continue pursuing the organization’s mandate to promote french language and francophone culture, but with a much-expanded capacity. besides classrooms for its continuing language learning, the new space features a boutique art gallery, a 165-seat professionally outfitted theatre space, a fully-equipped demonstration kitchen for cooking classes and special events, media library, commercial bistro and approximately 2,700 square feet of artist studio space.
with nearly 1,000 locations in over 137 countries, af has been active in vancouver since 1904. after new york city and toronto, the new vancouver location is the third-largest of its kind in north america.
damien hubert helmed the 10-year project. seeing the new space completed and ready to open up to the community is a dream come true for the af executive director.
“it has been a very long process and such a big development project was a once-in-a-lifetime situation,” said hubert. “the purpose of the new building is to bring more vitality to the organization as well as having a great environment for performances in the new theatre, which is set up for multidisciplinary events like dance, music and theatre. with the gallery and studio spaces, we can focus on other art, as well.”
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noting the scope of afs’ cultural connections extends to all french-speaking countries in europe and the rest of the world, the new facility will also provide a hub for touring acts that might not have anywhere to present locally.
vancouver’s steep real estate prices limit access to available arts spaces as these typically rely on low overhead costs to be able to make ends meet.
“we wanted to make sure that we had space available for both canadian and international artists when they tour to vancouver, as well as local artists that really need available spaces of a certain size,” hubert said. “the benefit of having been here since the 1960s is that we’ve been able to have long discussions with local arts and cultural groups and organizations, and we knew about the demand for space and kept that it in mind.
“we aren’t the queen elizabeth theatre, but we designed with the idea of providing a ramp for all of those artists on their way there.”
the dedicated working studio spaces will be made available to artists through a lottery selection. af already has longstanding partnerships with facilities such as the centre for digital media that involves bringing in digital artists from europe to create new digital art and content during local residencies. hubert hopes this kind of collaboration can be extended with the newly expanded creative space — with some limitations.
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“unfortunately, we are not able to provide somewhere for the artists to also live at the studio workspace,” he said. “this is more common in europe.”
while once considered to be outside the downtown and granville island cultural zone, today, the location is nestled alongside the massive new oakridge park neighbourhood development. hubert hopes is that features such as a full-scale commercial-teaching kitchen and meeting rooms can supplement operating costs.
“any groups can rent the kitchen, the theatre or the galley if they aren’t already being used and we hope to see the facility being known for that,” he said. “as a non-profit, we keep the costs for language classes and cultural programs as low cost as possible to keep them as accessible as possible. they are not designed to make a profit, so having facilities for rent is a must. the time has come to pay the bank now.”
statistics canada reports that approximately 1.5 per cent of b.c.’s population are regular french speakers at home, with slightly more than 300,000 people able to conduct a conversation in french. so, how did vancouver end up with the third largest af facility in north america?
the answer is twofold.
firstly, af owned its cambie street location, which changes everything about the development costs. it’s difficult to envision any arts and cultural organization trying to fundraise enough to purchase land and develop it to this degree in today’s real estate market. hubert admits this new facility runs countercurrent to the trend of not-for-profits shuttering.
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“i am eternally thankful for the people who chose this location back in the 1960s for doing so and establishing us as a cultural institution on what seemed a strange landscape,” he said. “looking at old photos, the area still had open fields and there was no canada line or anything. but now, we are here in a growing new community centre with a facility that is accessible to all-ages and ready to welcome one and all.”
secondly, while the growth of new french speakers moving to the province is not significant enough to create increased demand for french-specific cultural events, there is an increasing demand for learning canada’s other official language in b.c.’s rapidly expanding new immigrant communities. this has been key to the organization.
“vancouver is somewhere that newcomers arrive very much interested in learning both of the official languages, and that is reflected in our student body,” he said. “out of a student population of 3,500 per term, over half are children and most of them are drawn from the new immigrant population. this interest in french is very important for us and for vancouver.”
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