Confederation Centre of the Arts facts for kids
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| Address | 145 Richmond Street |
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| Location | Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 1964 |
| Architect | Ray Affleck, Hazen Sise, and Dimitri Dimakopoulos (of Arcop) |
| Official name: Confederation Centre of the Arts National Historic Site of Canada | |
| Designated: | 2003 |
The Confederation Centre of the Arts (French: Centre des arts de la Confédération) is a big cultural center in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. It's a place where people can enjoy visual arts like paintings and sculptures, and performing arts like plays and concerts. It was built to honor the people who helped create Canada.
History of the Centre
The Confederation Centre, often called "the Centre," started being built in 1960. Queen Elizabeth II officially opened it on October 6, 1964. This special building was created with money from all ten Canadian provinces and the federal government. It serves as Canada's National Memorial to the Fathers of Confederation. These important leaders met in Charlottetown in September 1864 at the Charlottetown Conference.
Today, the Centre gets most of its money (65%) from things like ticket sales and donations. The rest comes from government funding. This includes 25% from Canadian Heritage and 6% from the Province of PEI. Other groups provide the remaining 4% each year.
..."[The Fathers of Confederation Memorial Building] is a tribute to those famous men who founded our Confederation. But it is also dedicated to the fostering of those things that enrich the mind and delight the heart, those intangible but precious things that give meaning to a society and help create from it a civilization and a culture."
Since 1965, the Centre has hosted the Charlottetown Festival every summer. However, there was no festival in 2020 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The Centre holds a Guinness World Record for the longest-running annual musical theatre show. This show is Anne of Green Gables — The Musical. It was performed every summer from 1965 until 2019. Many other shows have also been performed there. In 2003, the Centre was named a National Historic Sites of Canada.
In 2011, the main theatre, called the Homburg Theatre, had a big renovation. This $17-million project improved the sound, seating, lighting, and stage equipment. The work was finished in time for the Centre's 50th anniversary in 2014.
Building Design
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The Confederation Centre was built on Queen's Square in downtown Charlottetown. It is right next to Province House. Province House is where Prince Edward Island's government meets. It was also the location of the Charlottetown Conference.
The Centre looks like three separate buildings from the street. These buildings house a theatre and an art gallery. They are grouped around "Memorial Hall," which faces Province House. The Confederation Chambre inside Province House, where the historic meetings happened, faces Memorial Hall.
The Confederation Centre takes up a whole city block. It is surrounded by Grafton Street, Queen Street, and Richmond Street. Inside, it has an art museum and several places for performing arts.
Art Museum
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The Confederation Centre Art Gallery opened at the same time as the rest of the building. It is an art museum located in the northeast part of the Centre. The art gallery is in a three-story building. It has over 3,250 square meters (35,000 square feet) of space for showing art. As of June 2017, the gallery had more than 17,000 artworks in its permanent collection.
Theatres for Performances
The Confederation Centre of the Arts has several places for performing arts. The main theatre has 1,109 seats. It is the largest main theatre in Canada east of Montreal. There are also two smaller studio theatres for different kinds of performances.
