On paper, Valérie Plante should be the most museum-friendly mayor Montreal has ever had. She is a trained museologist, who worked at the Musée d’art contemporain (MAC) before entering politics. She had a homecoming of sorts in April, as she and other politicians assembled at the MAC to fête its $44.7-million renovation plan.
Last week, however, the mayor revealed that a plot of land earmarked five years ago for a McCord Museum expansion would instead become a small park. The museum has spent more than $250,000 on needs and site assessments for the project near Place des Arts, for which Toronto philanthropist Emmanuelle Gattuso has pledged $15-million.
A 2017 exhibit at The McCord Museum in Montreal.Marilyn Aitken/Mccord museum
The mayor said the change was necessary because a nearby plot of privately owned green space would likely soon be filled with another glass tower. Her decision is apparently final, although she promised to help the museum look for another site.
That pledge was sure to provoke a hollow laugh from anyone who knows the hazing ritual that Montreal often inflicts on arts institutions seeking new digs. The pattern is simple: A site is found, plans are made, and then the land and related promises vanish like a fairyland castle. Repeat to the point of exhaustion, or beyond.
The MAC spent 16 years searching for a way to escape or enlarge its boxy building at the southwest corner of Place des Arts. At one point, it even considered a move into the Old Port’s derelict Silo No. 5 – an infamous black hole for redevelopment schemes that never happen.
Incredibly, when MAC was founded in 1964, it had no permanent quarters at all. It spent its first three decades moving from one temporary site to another. Apart from a brief honeymoon period after its current galleries opened in 1992, the museum has spent its entire half-century of life looking for a decent home.
The Montreal Symphony Orchestra (MSO) spent 30 years angling for a proper symphony hall. Six times it found a site, lined up backers and made plans, and each time ended up with nothing. When the seventh plan was announced in 2006, Quebec’s minister of culture felt obliged to say, “Cette fois-ci, c’est la bonne” – this time, it’s for real. Five years later, her words were proven true, as the MSO played its first concert at la Maison symphonique.
Several of the orchestra’s blown chances occurred after an election changed the faces in power. When Jean Doré replaced Jean Drapeau in the mayor’s office in 1986, for example, he announced that the site approved by his predecessor for a symphony hall would instead become a park.
Ms. Plante’s reprise of the same tune 32 years later couldn’t come at a worse time for the McCord. Since the land was promised five years ago by her predecessor Denis Coderre, the museum’s activities have expanded in every way. It merged with the Stewart Museum in 2013 and with the Fashion Museum in January. According to its latest annual report, McCord attendance in 2016-2017 rose by 25 per cent over the previous year, revenue went up 37 per cent and membership jumped 150 per cent.
McCord president and CEO Suzanne Sauvage says the museum can display only 1 per cent of its collections at any time – the norm among museums is 5 or 6 per cent – and can no longer accept donations of objects. There’s just no room left in its current quarters on Sherbrooke Street West.
The museum holds large and important collections of Indigenous objects, photographs and costumes. All those collections would have been featured in the planned second building, say Ms. Sauvage, which would have doubled the McCord’s space.
The museum’s return to square one does not bode well for other things that were running in its favour. Ms. Gattuso’s $15-million pledge is still on the table, but Ms. Sauvage is understandably nervous about what may happen to it if there’s a long delay in finding a new site.
The clock is ticking, Ms. Plante. Can you hear it?