Construction continues on Nikka Yuko cultural centre
By Herald on April 15, 2021.
Construction continues on Nikka Yuko cultural centre.
Herald photo by Tim KalinowskiTim Kalinowski
Lethbridge Herald
tkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com
The new Nikka Yuko community centre will see substantial completion by the end of August, city council’s Cultural and Social Standing Policy Committee was told on Thursday, and could have a soft opening as early as October.
According to Brad Hembroff, president of the Nikka Yuko Lethbridge and District Japanese Garden Society, the name the community organization will recommend to city council for the new facility will be the Nikka Yuko Bunka Centre. Nikka referring to Japanese-Canadian, Yuko to friendship, Bunka to culture– thus loosely translated as the Japanese Canadian Friendship Cultural Centre.
In conjunction with the opening of this new cultural centre the Nikka Yuko Garden Society will also honour the visionaries and the builders of the garden, including former Lethbridge Herald publisher Cleo Mowers, former Rev. Yutetsu Kawamura, and Kawamura’s wife Yoneko in the “visionaries” category as well as Dr. Tadishi Kubo, Dr. Masami Sugimoto and Mel Murakami in the “builders” category. The old visitor centre will be renamed in honour of Alex Yanoshita who donated $100,000 toward the construction of the new Nikka Yuko Bunka Centre.
During Thursday’s meeting Cultural and Social Standing Policy Committee members endorsed the name suggested by the society, and advanced it on to city council for final approval at, likely, the May 4 regular city council meeting.
The official opening of the new building is provisionally slated to take place during next the 2021-2022 Winter Lights Festival at Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden.
The garden’s new season will start on May 13.
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No “category” for those who have maintained and fostered the garden to its current state? It is those gardeners that fulfil the vision of the designers and visionaries. Without that fostering the garden would just be a park. Shame on the Society.