The Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg – Canada 4K

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights Is a Canadian Crown corporation and national museum located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, adjacent to The Forks. The purpose of the museum is to "explore the subject of human rights with a special but not exclusive reference to Canada, to enhance the public's understanding of human rights, to promote respect for others and to encourage reflection and dialogue. Established in 2008 through the enactment of Bill C-42, an amendment of The Museums Act of Canada, the CMHR is the first new national museum created in Canada since 1967, and it is Canada's first national museum ever to be located outside the National Capital Region. The Museum held its opening ceremonies on 19 September 2014. In 2003, the Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights launched an international architectural competition for the design of the CMHR. 100 submissions from 21 countries worldwide were submitted. The judging panel chose the design submitted by Antoine Predock from Albuquerque, New Mexico. His vision for the CMHR was a journey, beginning with a descent into the earth where visitors enter the CMHR through the "roots" of the museum. Visitors are led through the Great Hall, then a series of vast spaces and ramps, before culminating in the "Tower of Hope", a tall spire protruding from the CMHR. He has been quoted as saying: "I'm often asked what my favorite, my most important building is.... I'm going on record right now... 'This is it.'" Predock's inspiration for the CMHR came from the natural scenery and open spaces in Canada, including trees, ice, northern lights, First Nations peoples in Canada, and the rootedness of human rights action. He describes the CMHR in the following way: The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is rooted in humanity, making visible in the architecture the fundamental commonality of humankind-a symbolic apparition of ice, clouds and stone set in a field of sweet grass. Carved into the earth and dissolving into the sky on the Winnipeg horizon, the abstract ephemeral wings of a white dove embrace a mythic stone mountain of 450-million-year-old Tyndall limestone in the creation of a unifying and timeless landmark for all nations and cultures of the world. On 3 July 2010, Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, unveiled the building's cornerstone. The stone bears the Queen's royal cypher and has embedded in it a piece of stone from the ruins of St. Mary's Priory, at Runnymede, England, where it is believed the Magna Carta was approved in 1215 by King John.