Canada, 60 Lispenard St

Nineteen years after opening its first exhibition space on Broadway along the edge of Tribeca, Canada Gallery returned to the neighborhood from the Lower East Side with the renovation of an industrial storefront at 60 Lispenard Street. The new gallery location offers necessary breathing room for the growing exhibition program with generous spaces for art and at a scale to support large installations. As a gallery, Canada presents a context for art where the interface with the audience is an underlying motivation. In response to this ambition, the design of the Lispenard space creates sociable spaces for viewing and working with art.

The gallery operates on the ground floor and basement of a landmarked industrial building converted to rent-controlled loft apartments in the 1970s. On the sidewalk level, the sequence of the program starts with the gallery office at the cast iron storefront. Layered beyond the office, the exhibition spaces increase in size beginning with the viewing room, followed by the project room, then the main gallery space. The ceilings of the gallery spaces were re-designed to conceal all exposed plumbing in the original loft-like environment. Linear surface-mounted LED fixtures are laid out to emphasize the scale and geometry of each gallery space. The same fixtures are used in the basement to maintain continuity for viewing and photographing artwork. The concrete terrain of the basement is defined by the structural footings of the building. These footings create raised perimeter platforms and paths that step down into the communal kitchen and art handling areas. The original rear yard windows have been restored to allow natural light into the spaces below grade.