Past Planning Director Ray Spaxman circulated this comment on Sunday:
It is disturbing to be living at a time when bad manners are being condoned by the community. Obviously dreadful behaviour, as displayed continuously by that powerful man to the south of us, seems to be encouraging the “bad mannered” to expand that behaviour into all walks of life.
It seems that some rich and powerful, and-or big and strong people, are able not only to display bad manners, they seem also to obtain the approval of the various authorities that have evolved over time in our communities to prevent the worst “bad manners” from disrupting our sense of comfort in our neighbourhoods.
I have also noted another trend, which I know some of you have noticed too, and that is the increasing bad manners that can occur in development and especially in architecture. Bad-mannered architecture has been an issue for centuries but we seem to be going through a phase when bad manners is condoned for the sake of money, international recognition or simply absence of mind.
The latest example is the proposed residential tower at 1500 Georgia Street.The building rendering below is taken from the current application going before Council next week.
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Price Tags: The counter response to Ray’s argument has been that ‘good-mannered’ architecture has produced bland, albeit respectful, architecture and that occasionally something more adventuresome and provocative is needed to add dynamism to the urban landscape. Is Vancouver open to new ideas and the work of the avant-garde, or does it remain good-mannered and dull?
Or are there other considerations and points of view?
I’m having a hard time seeing the bad manners in 1500 W Georgia. If it is the differentiation of the facade into jenga blocks so that individual suites stand out in such a way that we can’t ignore them as we look past toward the water, well, so what? But if it is that the design violates envelope restrictions and blocks views that wouldn’t otherwise be blocked, well, that’s something that the City has to rule on every day, and if they rule for it, isn’t it the City’s bad manners?
I simply do not understand what “bad mannered” means in architectural terms. Disruptive? Different? Innovative? Not the usual Vancouver style? Is it the opposite of boring sameness? Please do bring it on then.
Based on the previous posts around the Telus building and its extension past its lot lines in to the “public” realm I’m guessing the ‘bad manners’ here is a project which extends beyond its borders, elbowing its way along?
It is impossible to legislate taste. If local architecture takes on greater risk, then urban design is healthier for it. If the risk delves into controversy, then the ensuing debate can be indicative of how much people care about their city. This is far better than letting it sink further into mediocrity and blandness.
It is the developer’s money to spend on private residential projects, but that doesn’t preclude the fact that their architect’s works remain part of the public viewshed. It shouldn’t escape anyone’s attention that local newspapers, with one or two small exceptions, have eliminated architectural criticism seemingly because developer advertising was at risk.
It also needs to be noted that architect’s are often their client’s vassals. Too many times clients have forcibly stripped good design down to the utterly basic based on the pre-tender cost estimates, only to have the city demand more. Then it’s a fight with the client to be paid for the additional work to resubmit. This experience added to hundreds of hours of unpaid overtime were the main reasons I left years of private practice behind. In a large corporate firm the number of good clients who care about good design and understand the design process are in the minority.
Public buildings should rightfully receive more attention and have exemplary rules in place for design competitions. Where was Ray Spaxman when Gordon Campbell stuck a screwdriver into the gears of the otherwise workable design competition for the Vancouver Public Library and chose a Roman Coliseum over other arguably more mature designs and design processes? Trevor Body commented in a column that the models did the “mall crawl” on Campbell’s orders and straw voting for sensationalism and cheesy historical facadism won the day over any serious architectural discourse. In all cases we still got a decent library facility, but ours was widely derided behind closed doors in every architectural office of note in the nation and made the international Outrage page in the venerable old Architectural Record magazine. This on top of Moshe Safdie’s arrogant claim that he “gave Vancouver a history.” Yeah right. Our deeply meaningful 14,000 year-old Indigenous and European history doesn’t exist.
One other point. Design competitions are important and should be a requirement for all significant public facilities. The VAG is no exception. One person should not have control over the process or the results. Clear rules need to put in place regarding the formation of a design competition panel of judges, and expertise in not only the facility’s intended technical function but in design must be an absolute requirement. Public consultation is very important, but it is only one category to evaluate amid a plethora of technical and contextual criteria. The competition terms of reference should be made public as well as the full evaluation of the results. This will not eliminate controversy, but it will promote architecture and urban design as a public asset, and the process will follow clear cut rules.
On these terms the management of both the recent VAG and older VPL design processes have been a dismal failure primarily because one individual monkeyed with the levers and buttons behind the curtain.
+1 to Anonymous … the first time this project was discussed, Ray also objected to it vociferously … and I also struggle to see why this would be singled out.
Yes the proliforation of expensive buildings which are empty owned by opaque means … etc … is a thing, but there’s a whole lot of change necessary to make that no longer be a thing, and any one building isn’t going to change it … but this isn’t Ray’s critique, it was that it was ‘un-neighbourly’ (before) and now that is has ‘bad manners’ (now) … and I really don’t see how it is any more or less so inherently than any of the other thousand towers being constructed, and quite frankly, it’s nice to see something which isn’t glass blah.
Considering that everything built blocks someone’s view, if that is the complaint being made … it seems odd to single out this tower, and not the one already adjacent, the one to come across the street, or across the street from that, or the new ones on Robson, or …………
I agree with Ray. Bad mannered typically means bad for pedestrians and others living or working nearby. We shouldn’t be beholden to someone’s ego.
Ray has not explained what makes this building “bad mannered” so it’s hard to agree or disagree. It is the first 3 to 5 floors that are critical to pedestrians and bad manners at these heights occur regularly with or without multiple floors above them. To be fair there are also lots of good examples of pedestrian friendly frontages. But Vancouver certainly tends toward the bland at all levels so a little visual excitement above the podium is okay by me.
There is something positive to be said about a coherent theme in a series of buildings and I think Concorde Pacific has done a decent job on the north side of False Creek. But it’s a little tiring if that’s all we get.
The truth is always a struggle.
Without clarification from Ray Spaxman we’re all left guessing what he considers ‘bad mannered’ about the 1500 West Georgia tower. When he voiced his dislike of the Telus Garden office building, it was because the project had two projecting boxes that pushed out over the sidewalk, although they were some way up the building, and didn’t really block any views.
In this case the projecting boxes on the Ole Scheeren designed residential tower are all contained within the site; nothing extends over sidewalks, so that can’t be it. One guess would be that the boxy, angular and undoubtedly ‘look at me’ architecture of the proposed residential tower would be a significant contrast to the simpler, angled modernist box of the existing Crown Life Plaza office building on the other end of the site, designed by Peter Cardew at Rhone and Iredale and completed in 1978.
A couple of years ago Heritage Vancouver suggested that “The siting, scale, form and overall character of the new residential tower would completely alter the coherence and context of Cardew’s original design.” It looks as if that’s might be considered ‘bad manners’. The project has been altered, and reduced in height quite a bit since the earlier versions, and the pool, waterfall and context won’t change nearly as much as was first suggested.