Museum of Anthropology

The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia at 6393 NW Marine Drive in Vancouver houses one of Canada's finest collections of world cultures with particular emphasis on the arts and material culture of the Northwest Coast First Nations peoples. The building, designed by Canadian architect Arthur Erickson and opened in 1976, is itself considered one of the most significant works of Canadian architecture: post-and-beam concrete forms inspired by the structural logic of Northwest Coast Indigenous architecture, oriented to frame views across the Strait of Georgia toward Vancouver Island. The Great Hall, the museum's centrepiece, rises 14 metres and is flooded with natural light through floor-to-ceiling glazing, displaying large-scale totem poles, house posts, and carved cedar canoes from Haida, Musqueam, Tlingit, and other peoples. The Koerner European Ceramics Gallery and the Multiversity Galleries — a storage-on-display concept placing over 10,000 objects in study drawers accessible to the public — distinguish the museum from traditional curation models. The outdoor property includes two reconstructed Haida houses and six mortuary and memorial poles carved by the late master carver Bill Reid and other artists. Haida Gwaii-born artist Bill Reid's monumental bronze sculpture The Raven and the First Men, created in 1980, is displayed in a purpose-built rotunda and is the museum's single most visited object. The museum is a 30-minute bus ride from downtown Vancouver or a pleasant cycling route along NW Marine Drive.