The good ship “Vancouverism” – a wooden structure of local design – has been successfully launched in Trafalgar Square, overlooked appropriately by Lord Nelson. At least according to today’s Sun: “London exhibition puts spotlight on Vancouver architects.”
Architecture critic Trevor Boddy has co-curated this presentation on the Vancouver Style, as it’s also called. (More here in Price Tags 64.)
Hopefully the exhibition will be remounted in Vancouver (how could it not!) if appropriate space is found.
The origins of Vancouverism alone require a good analysis. Like any successful child, it has a thousand parents. Our small lots and relatively low densities required small floor plates for our highrises, particularly in the West End in the 1960s – hence the point tower. The engineers designed and the building codes allowed so-called “scissor stairs” in the core of the building, eliminating ‘slab’ towers. Our fascination with views eventually resulted in floor-to-ceiling glass on all sides of our condos. The point-and-podium tower form was first apparent in (choose one) “North Park” (eventually International Village), CityGate or 888 Beach. Larry Beasley was the catalyst. Or Stanley Kwok. Or maybe it was Barry Downs. Or James Cheng.
Or, as the article suggests, Arthur Erickson: “Vancouverism is a term invented by American city planners, and was started by the early visions of 84-year-old Erickson …” (It’s true that Erickson did some early West End towers – Sutton Place and Harley House on Nelson Street – but I’m not so sure he should be be credited with the Style.)
Regardless of its origins, Vancouverism has a lot to contribute. As Boddy says:
“Our city has become a pilgrimage point for urbanists, developers and so on,” Boddy said. “In a climate-change crisis and increasingly in a world context, Vancouver has ideas about how to live in cities, how to live with less land how to use the most sustainable of all materials, which is wood … a building material that takes carbon out of the air and keeps it in.
“I like to think of this as The Empire Strikes Back.”
