Canada‘s central bank has selected the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, designed by US architect Antoine Predock, to feature on the country’s new $10 bank note.
The Bank of Canada unveiled the design for the $10 CAD note in March this year, choosing the building in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to feature on the back of the bill.
Described by Predock as a “peaceful beacon for humanity”, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) was selected to complement the note’s theme of promoting human rights in the country.
It will join a portrait of the country’s late civil rights activist Viola Desmond, who famously refused to give up her cinema seat in Novo Scotia to a white person in 1946, which will be placed on the front.
Desmond’s purple-hued portrait will match the background of the note, with the number 10 in white. On the reverse side, the museum will be shown in blue in reference to its glass facades, and accompanied by a purple 10.
The $10 CAD bill, which is equivalent to nearly £6, will also be vertically orientated – a first in Canadian history.
Completed in 2014, the CMHR is one of the best-known projects by Predock. The 82-year-old US architect, whose eponymous firm is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, won the commission as the result of an international competition in 2003.
Among the design’s main features are large curved glazed strips, which overlap to resemble the wings of a white dove – a commonly recognised peace symbol.
The glazing is set around the front of the museum, while a compilation of stone volumes are built up at the rear to resemble Canada’s rocky outcrops.
Visitors to CMHR enter into the Great Hall at the base of the building and then gradually make their way to the Tower of Hope. Protruding from the top of the museum, this structure is described by the architect’s firm as a “peaceful beacon for humanity”.
Galleries are accessed on the route up along with the Garden of Contemplation, which comprises structures made of basalt and granite. Other spaces include offices, classrooms, a museum store and a café.
Canada’s $10 bill joins a number of other updated currencies. Examples include Norwegian banknotes designed by architecture studio Snøhetta and the special-edition notes that Jeremy Deller created for local currency the Brixton Pound.
Earlier this year, One Rise East imagined a set of 26 coins as an alternative to the collection released by the UK’s Royal Mint.
Photography of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is by Aaron Cohen, courtesy of CMHR.
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