Museum of Anthropology at UBC

The Museum of Anthropology at UBC (MOA) sits on a cliff-top at 6393 NW Marine Drive in Point Grey, on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people, in Vancouver, British Columbia. The museum opened in 1949 in the basement of the university library and moved to its current building in 1976. That building was designed by the Vancouver architect Arthur Erickson, who drew on the post-and-beam construction of Northwest Coast Indigenous houses and set the structure in a landscape that includes reconstructed Haida houses and carved poles overlooking the water. The Great Hall, with its soaring glass walls and concrete frame, is the architectural centrepiece and holds monumental carved poles, house posts and canoes from the Haida, Gitxsan, Kwakwaka'wakw and other Northwest Coast nations. The museum is best known for its collection of works by the Haida artist Bill Reid, including the boxwood and yellow cedar carving The Raven and the First Men, displayed in a dedicated rotunda gallery. Beyond the Great Hall, the Multiversity Galleries use open visible storage, with thousands of objects from around the world arranged in glass-fronted drawers and cases, an approach that departs from the conventional label-and-vitrine model. The Koerner Ceramics Gallery shows European ceramics, and temporary exhibitions address contemporary Indigenous art and global cultures. The curatorial approach is thematic and collaborative: MOA has worked with Musqueam and other First Nations communities on research, repatriation and interpretation, and its Reciprocal Research Network connects source communities with collections held worldwide. Outside, the Haida houses and the Musqueam house post and welcome figures show Indigenous architecture at full scale. Preservation of the totem poles is an ongoing concern because of the damp coastal climate, and conservation staff periodically treat or re-site poles. The building underwent a major renewal in the 2010s, including seismic and gallery upgrades. Visitors typically allow two to three hours, and the museum is part of the UBC campus, reached by bus from downtown.