Vancouver Art Gallery gifted US$30 million by Hong Kong textile heirs for expansion plans
- The donation from the family that founded Crocodile Garments is the largest of its kind to an arts and culture organisation in British Columbia
- The building will be named the Chan Centre for the Visual Arts after the family, which has been in Vancouver for 30 years
A C$40 million (US$30 million) donation from the family that founded Hong Kong’s Crocodile Garments company has revived the Vancouver Art Gallery’s ambitious expansion plans, stalled since 2008 by a lack of funds.
On Wednesday, the gallery announced that the Chan family had made a donation towards the C$300 million needed for a Herzog & de Meuron-designed new building in the city centre that will provide much needed space.
The gallery has been housed in the neo-classical former courthouse on Hornby Street since the 1950s.
The new building will be named the Chan Centre for the Visual Arts after the family, which has been in Vancouver for 30 years. The descendants of the late Chan Shun – who sold Crocodile to Lim Por-yen of the Hong Kong conglomerate Lai Sun Group in 1987 – have built up a sizeable real estate empire in the US and Canada operating under the name the Burrard Group.
The gift from the Chan family amounts to the largest single private donation to an arts and culture organisation in British Columbia.
