Development of Heritage Neighborhoods (Granville, Yaletown, Chinatown, etc.)

[Vin]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

Yes it had unchallenged style for about 7 years likely from 1909-1916. I can agree on that. However that was gutted decades ago.

Yup, one thing we don't lack in Vancouver: Dumb City officials, and greedy and visionless owners. That's why Hotel Dunsmuir was gutted.

Lots of money, creativity and care taken by people in the past to create beautiful things worth preserving were summarily destroyed so that the next generations do not know how to appreciate nice things here.

[chowhou]

Let me tell you a story.

The year is 2125.

The Alberni by Kengo Kuma was bought in the year 2106 by Holborn Group at the behest of its cyber-CEO Joo Kim Tiah-bot.

For the past 10 years it has sat vacant. Before that it had been used as low income housing. 100 years ago it contained some of the most expensive real estate in Vancouver.

Today it has been officially been condemned.

Protestors have gathered outside, decrying the loss of our city's heritage.

"When this building was built, it was considered the peak of luxury!"

"We don't build beautiful glass towers anymore, all we build are soulless transparent aluminum arcologies!"

"This historic building was built when people actually cared about craftsmanship and was built with actual human labour instead of being mass printed by nanobots."

"Why do we keep tearing down our city's rich history!? Yes I live in a $100 million dollar remodeled Vancouver Special passed down in my family for 6 generations why do you ask?"

---

If you think that's silly, imagine how someone in 1920 would feel about the Dunsmuir Hotel being so fetishised today.

[Migrant_Coconut]

If a hundred years’ worth of hotel owners and heritage preservation groups didn’t see the value in it, I don’t see why City Hall should have.

[logan5]

Weird take. Pre war architecture is vastly superior to the glass towers being built today. No amount of time will change that. You may as well argue that Justin briber will be looked at in the same light as Mozart in 100 years. Bad art is bad art.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by logan5

Weird take. Pre war architecture is vastly superior to the glass towers being built today. No amount of time will change that. You may as well argue that Justin briber will be looked at in the same light as Mozart in 100 years. Bad art is bad art.

Some is, some isn't. This isn't the Hotel Vancouver or the Marine Building. The Dunsmuir is meh IMO.

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by logan5

Weird take. Pre war architecture is vastly superior to the glass towers being built today. No amount of time will change that. You may as well argue that Justin briber will be looked at in the same light as Mozart in 100 years. Bad art is bad art.

A lot of pre-war buildings were made with inferior local brick. That was one of the major concerns the City building inspector had for the Dunsmuir Hotel. It turned out to not be the case, but it raises the all brick is equal question. Looks good, structurally turning into dust.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

- snip -

It’s in the Tyee. That’s all you need to know. Want to go double or nothing again and cite CityHallWatch next?

You missed the point - they all became obsolete, so we tore them down and built newer, better ones. Maybe we should never have built Dunsmuir at all, seeing as it clearly disrespects the heritage of the wooden Vancouver which came before it.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by logan5

Weird take. Pre war architecture is vastly superior to the glass towers being built today. No amount of time will change that. You may as well argue that Justin briber will be looked at in the same light as Mozart in 100 years. Bad art is bad art.

I really think I understand your viewpoint here and I simply cannot disagree more. Firstly, some of the music we've created in the past 100 years makes Mozart look amateurish and secondly, imagine a world where we can't create any new housing because the radios inside the existing buildings are all playing Mozart and we're not allowed to tear down buildings that are playing Mozart (despite the fact we could easily build new buildings with radios that play Mozart if we wanted to.)

And be honest. Was the last song you chose to listen to written by Mozart or a contemporary composer?

As an aside, the production and compositional geniuses of modern artists like Miles Davis, Brian Wilson, and Kanye West are already seen in the same light as Mozart with respect to their influence on music and the beauty of their craft, let alone in 100 years. It's easy to compare the high art of the past with the vernacular art of the present but we could equally say that the tavern bards of the 1700s are all but forgotten nowadays too.

500 Dunsmuir is the tavern bard of turn of the century Vancouver architecture. Come on, it's a rectangular brick building why are we fetishising it?

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

You missed the point - they all became obsolete, so we tore them down and built newer, better ones. Maybe we should never have built Dunsmuir at all, seeing as it clearly disrespects the heritage of the wooden Vancouver which came before it.

This is a very important point. Everyone across all time has thought that current art/architecture sucks and the old stuff was so much better. Haussmann was criticised for building ugly modern buildings and tearing down Paris's heritage buildings. The Nazis thought that Picasso was creating degenerate modern art and the black jazz musicians were creating degenerate music, only Wagner and Mozart were "real" music. No one seems to know nowadays that modernist architecture came about because people were so sick and tired of boring "modern" brick buildings...

[jollyburger]

They were doing some work around the building today and in the alley. Real prep work starts tomorrow.

https://trafficcams.vancouver.ca/richardsDunsmuir.htm

[jollyburger]

Looks like they are all prepped to start the demolition work.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Looks like they are all prepped to start the demolition work.

There was a huge crew with high-vis vests and hardhats collected around getting briefed at midday, and they closed Dunsmuir at that point and started setting up the screens etc. I heard one comment that with the right nudge it could be down in 30 minutes. I think it was a joke - but we'll see. There's not a lot holding it up, if the engineering reports are accurate.

[jollyburger]

I think it's probably not that far off I think just controlling where everything drops is their main concern without damaging too many poles or neighbouring buildings.

[jollyburger]

Traffic cameras are disconnected now.

EDIT: Some video of the demolition. They're using "cutters" on the excavator to rip away the cornices. COV says they have air monitoring and constant water on the building for dust surpression so they say it's safe.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10966027/dunsmuir-hotel-demolition-underway/

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Traffic cameras are disconnected now.

EDIT: Some video of the demolition. They're using "cutters" on the excavator to rip away the cornices. COV says they have air monitoring and constant water on the building for dust surpression so they say it's safe.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10966027/dunsmuir-hotel-demolition-underway/

There’s a certain amount of irony that so many older buildings in Vancouver were shorn of their cornices years ago over safety yet this dilapidated wreck seems to have held onto its quite well.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by whatnext

There’s a certain amount of irony that so many older buildings in Vancouver were shorn of their cornices years ago over safety yet this dilapidated wreck seems to have held onto its quite well.

I guess the metal over it kept most of the hanging element more protected from water damage. And the roof collapsing into the centre of the building probably helped with actually draining water away from the edge. If you look up on Google Maps streetview you can see a lot of signs of damage with large sections of paint on the underside peeling.

[jollyburger]

New CTV News video with the section on the corner totally removed. They are making a lot of progress. The water streams are barely reaching the roof level so their dust suppression seems a bit lacking.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article...age-building-begins-after-council-order/

They have tarps hanging over the buildings across the street to access the retail.

We are hoping that it will take about 36 or 40 hours of continuous operation to knock the building down,

https://globalnews.ca/news/10966027/duns...e%20Monday%20morning%20commute.%E2%80%9D

[jollyburger]

https://x.com/PeterMeiszner/status/1880731944557961629

[GMD]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Let me tell you a story.

The year is 2125.

The Alberni by Kengo Kuma was bought in the year 2106 by Holborn Group at the behest of its cyber-CEO Joo Kim Tiah-bot.

For the past 10 years it has sat vacant. Before that it had been used as low income housing. 100 years ago it contained some of the most expensive real estate in Vancouver.

Today it has been officially been condemned.

Protestors have gathered outside, decrying the loss of our city's heritage.

"When this building was built, it was considered the peak of luxury!"

"We don't build beautiful glass towers anymore, all we build are soulless transparent aluminum arcologies!"

"This historic building was built when people actually cared about craftsmanship and was built with actual human labour instead of being mass printed by nanobots."

"Why do we keep tearing down our city's rich history!? Yes I live in a $100 million dollar remodeled Vancouver Special passed down in my family for 6 generations why do you ask?"

---

If you think that's silly, imagine how someone in 1920 would feel about the Dunsmuir Hotel being so fetishised today.

People wouldn't care if they thought the new building would look as nice as the old one does, but it won't. Nobody wants heritage plumbing or wiring and very few will put heritage furniture in their place, but new buildings just look worse than old ones, and that makes it hard for people to be happy when new buildings replace old ones.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by GMD

People wouldn't care if they thought the new building would look as nice as the old one does, but it won't. Nobody wants heritage plumbing or wiring and very few will put heritage furniture in their place, but new buildings just look worse than old ones, and that makes it hard for people to be happy when new buildings replace old ones.

I must be a complete outlier because I find it very hard to believe that people think 500 Dunsmuir looked nicer than 402 Dunsmuir or 510 West Georgia or 777 Dunsmuir or 438 Seymour or even 755 Beatty.

It was 3 rectangles with plain brick facades. If it's the cornice people want, 1088 and 1128 Quebec show we have no issues with doing that either.

Maybe people just like weathered brick more than new brick? If that's the case, maybe we should try letting our current brick facade buildings like 160 East Cordorva or 565 Seymour age for 100 years before judging them.

[jollyburger]

They were just ripping down the last section of the building this morning. I assume they'll spend the rest of the time cleaning up the sidewalk/street and maybe putting up fencing.

https://x.com/johnrstreit/status/1881094227410792542