Vancouver Art Gallery
Western Canada's largest art museum, housed in a Francis Rattenbury courthouse since 1983 — the gallery's original home even survived a 1938 sit-down strike with its paintings untouched.
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The building started as a provincial courthouse, designated a National Historic Site in 1980, and was converted into a gallery in 1983. It now fills 165,000 sq ft adjacent to Robson Square. Its permanent collection holds around 12,000 works by Canadian and international artists, complemented by seasonal and travelling exhibitions.
What to look for
- Rattenbury's courthouse architecture — the original bones of the 1980 National Historic Site still visible throughout
- The permanent collection's breadth: 12,000 works spanning Canadian and international artists
- The sheer scale of the building — at 165,000 sq ft it is the largest art museum in Western Canada
Sits directly beside Robson Square in downtown Vancouver; check the current exhibition schedule before you go, as programming rotates seasonally.
Vancouver Art Gallery is one of 13 sights worth the detour in Vancouver, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Vancouver pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Vancouver
- BC PlaceA stadium that broke the same world record twice — first with the largest air-supported roof ever built, then with the largest cable-supported retractable roof.
- Rogers ArenaBuilt for C$160 million and opened in 1995, this is the rink where Vancouver's hockey soul lives — and where the city briefly renamed it Canada Hockey Place for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
- Stanley ParkA thousand acres of old-growth forest on a downtown peninsula — bigger than Central Park, as old as Vancouver itself.
- Pacific ColiseumThe rink where Vancouver first played NHL hockey — and where 2010 Olympic skaters competed on the same ice.
- Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports CentreCanada's first national hockey team was born on this ice in 1963 — and the Vancouver Canucks still practice here.
- Richmond Olympic OvalThe rink where Olympic speed skaters raced in 2010 is now a public arena where you can climb a wall, row a tank, or lace up hockey skates — all under one roof.