Batoche Interpretative Centre
Batoche Park, SK
Parks Canada maintains Batoche as a national historic site, visited by 25,000 people annually. To commemorate the centennial of the uprising, IKOY designed a new reception and administration centre that would interpret the history of the Metis settlement, prepare visitors for self-guided trail tours through the adjacent battlefield, and house site maintenance facilities.
The Interpretive Centre is set on the edge of the historic Batoche battlefield – a field previously of tree, bush and meadows with one building, a church with a white steeple. In 1885, widespread opposition to the government’s land policies provoked an armed resistance by 300 Metis against the dominion’s troops. The site has come to symbolize the Metis’ last stand as united people, the end of their independence, and the eventual closing of the Canadian frontier.
The building is designed to intensify this story – its rifled gallery walk, its V site focused on the church, its pavilion administration, theatre and museum provide spaces to glimpse the landscape. These features are reinforced by the trees which grow against the glazed rifling textured walk that is a memory of the paths the warriors moved through. The building is also designed and materialized so that the uninformed visitor will never mistake it for an original building – it is not part of the contextual order – but rather an intensifier of that contextual past. It makes the visitor a participant.
Structure
Hollow metal tube sections form the columns and sloped roof sections. The purlins are also steel tubes.
Skin
Curtain wall with standard or natural anodized aluminum in control grids backed by steel stud partitions.
Mechanical
All air heating and cooling system.
Electrical
All standard equipment.
Action Strategies
The site is remote. Materials and labour had to be transported 200 miles from Saskatoon or Prince Albert. The curtain wall was sent 200 miles from Winnipeg. Materials were selected from manufacturers standard catalogues.
Key Information
Completed
1986
Project Cost
$1.5M
Building Area
7,200 m²/18,500 ft
Awards
RAIC Millennium Award, 2000
Publications
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Journal – May 2000
Architectural Record – May 1987
Batoche Interpretative Centre
Batoche Park, SK
Parks Canada maintains Batoche as a national historic site, visited by 25,000 people annually. To commemorate the centennial of the uprising, IKOY designed a new reception and administration centre that would interpret the history of the Metis settlement, prepare visitors for self-guided trail tours through the adjacent battlefield, and house site maintenance facilities.
The Interpretive Centre is set on the edge of the historic Batoche battlefield – a field previously of tree, bush and meadows with one building, a church with a white steeple. In 1885, widespread opposition to the government’s land policies provoked an armed resistance by 300 Metis against the dominion’s troops. The site has come to symbolize the Metis’ last stand as united people, the end of their independence, and the eventual closing of the Canadian frontier.
The building is designed to intensify this story – its rifled gallery walk, its V site focused on the church, its pavilion administration, theatre and museum provide spaces to glimpse the landscape. These features are reinforced by the trees which grow against the glazed rifling textured walk that is a memory of the paths the warriors moved through. The building is also designed and materialized so that the uninformed visitor will never mistake it for an original building – it is not part of the contextual order – but rather an intensifier of that contextual past. It makes the visitor a participant.
Structure
Hollow metal tube sections form the columns and sloped roof sections. The purlins are also steel tubes.
Skin
Curtain wall with standard or natural anodized aluminum in control grids backed by steel stud partitions.
Mechanical
All air heating and cooling system.
Electrical
All standard equipment.
Action Strategies
The site is remote. Materials and labour had to be transported 200 miles from Saskatoon or Prince Albert. The curtain wall was sent 200 miles from Winnipeg. Materials were selected from manufacturers standard catalogues.
Key Information
Completed
1986
Project Cost
$1.5M
Building Area
7,200 m²/18,500 ft
Awards
RAIC Millennium Award, 2000
Publications
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Journal – May 2000
Architectural Record – May 1987
