UBC Museum of Anthropology

Location: UBC

Project Manager: Tim Knight

Owner: UBC Project Services

Contract: CCDC 5A

Consultant: Nick Milkovich Architecture

Project Value: $28,000,000

Completion Date: March 2024

Category: Institutional

Originally opened in 1976, the Museum of Anthropology was recognized by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada for its enduring excellence and national significance to Canadian architecture as one of the best works of the 20th century.

The focal point of the Museum was the high-ceilinged Great Hall, which housed massive totem poles. Large glass windows, towering up to forty feet in height, provided an unobstructed view and allowed the poles to be seen in daylight against a natural backdrop.

The project involved rehabilitation of multiple areas of the Museum’s envelope and a seismic structural upgrade of the Great Hall. A base isolation system—one of the first applied to a Canadian heritage building of this type—was installed beneath the Great Hall’s concrete columns, protecting both lives and artifacts while preserving the building’s original spatial clarity.

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