Human Rights museum unveils winning design

Last Updated: Friday, April 15, 2005 | 5:19 PM ET

CBC Arts

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights has unveiled the winner of its international design competition.

Antoine Predock, a New Mexico-based architect whose designs feature spare, clean lines that reflect the landscape around his buildings, won the competition.

The Human Rights Museum was the dream of late media mogul Izzy Asper. More than 700 people gathered at Winnipeg's Centennial Concert Hall Friday to hear the announcement, made by Babs Asper, widow of the CanWest Global Communications founder.

Antoine Predock's winning design for the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. (Image: Robert Reck Photography)

"This is a moment Israel dreamed of as he appealed to all of Canada to look beyond ourselves, and our parochial interests, to reach for the stars and create an iconic structure that would symbolize Canada's commitment to human rights," she said.

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The $300-million museum aims to be the largest human-rights institution and education centre in the world. Scheduled to open in 2009 or 2010, the museum will be built at the historic Forks site in Winnipeg, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers.

Predock described the area as a place to exchange ideas and cultures, on a site that aboriginals have used for centuries.

Predock, who studied architecture at Columbia University, has taught at universities around the U.S. and in Italy and Argentina. He designed the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington state, the new ballpark in San Diego and recently won another competition to design the New National Palace Museum in Taiwan. His work was also prominently featured in the 1998 film Gattaca.

The review committee called Predock's design "a symbolic statement of both the rootedness and the upward struggle for human rights" and one that "exhibits the substantial presence of an iconic building ... yet retains a human scale."

Launched in 2003, the design competition received entries from 62 architectural firms from 21 countries. The three finalists included Predock and two Canadian groups: Dan Hanganu Architects & the Arcop Group and Montreal's Saucier + Perrotte Architectes.

So far, the museum has received a pledge of $30 million from the federal government, $20 million from the Manitoba government and $20 million from the city of Winnipeg. Individuals, corporations and others have contributed nearly $40 million.