Designed by Arthur Erickson, the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, BC, serves as a distinguished example of Brutalist architecture in Canada. Because of seismic issues with the original concrete framing, the museum’s Great Hall was in need of renovation that included rebuilding the hall on a base-isolated platform. The authors developed and engineered a new structural glazing system that maintains the original design, including nearly 2-meter-tall glass fins, while accommodating seismic drifts. This article describes their design and testing approach using “micro” performance mock-ups to represent key elements of the facade. Working with the hardware manufacturer, they also developed three small-scale test assemblies to verify strength, drift accommodation, and watertightness.
This article was published in Glass Structures & Engineering, Volume 11, article number 23 (Sept. 3, 2026).