In this first critical history of the National Gallery of Canada, Douglas Ord explores how, in the gallery's development, art has consistently been linked to notions of religious truth, national spirit, and hallowed atmosphere, culminating in Moshe Safdie's design for the institution's current building. Integrating accounts of political intrigue and public controversy with philosophy, art theory, and architectural analysis, Ord provides vivid accounts of successive directors' struggles to obtain a permanent home for the nation's art.

Ord looks at the gallery's historical and intellectual context - from 1910 when Eric Brown became the gallery's founding director, through Jean Sutherland Boggs, to Shirley Thomson - shedding light on its acquisitions, government policy towards the arts, and the public's deep-rooted suspicion of avant-garde art. In showing how Canadian art came to be housed in a building whose architectural and ideological sources include Gothic cathedrals, Islamic mosques, Egyptian temples, St Peter's Basilica, and the squared-stone facades of the Holy City of Jerusalem, The National Gallery of Canada insightfully explores the relationship of Canada's art and its National Gallery to the project of the Canadian nation state.