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Posted Mar 3, 2015, 10:16 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 41,663
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So...
Does this whole discussion about the style of the outlet mall validate Brian Jackson's comments about Vancouver architecture?
Quote:
At the core of Jackson's views is his belief that buildings either have to fit in or stand out. And not in a garish, jarring way. Vancouver, he believes, is a city with sometimes vanilla architecture that reflects a reserved, shy citizenry. Not like Toronto, where he once worked for seven years as the manager of waterfront planning.
“There they hold their head up high, they don’t know who you are, but they walk out and shake your hand and say “Hi, my name’s Bob,” he said.
“Here, everybody looks with their eyes down, watching their step so they don’t trip, but there is not as much engagement. There is not as much feeling confident about who they are as a person.”
That, he says, is exactly the case with Vancouver’s building forms and the criticism launched over the “Icepick” tower.
“I think we are very shy in terms of our architecture. We want so desperately for a building to fit in that sometimes we don’t make those gestures and those architectural expressions that means that the building stands out. And when we do, when we try it, there is a lot of criticism,” he said.
“That is always our struggle in Vancouver. Do you want something that fits in really well, or do you want something that stands out?”
Welcome, then, to Brian Jackson’s Vancouver, where he loves striking buildings, parks and open spaces that use form and fit to make their marks. There are, to be sure, what he calls “background buildings” that make up the streetscape and fill a use. “Sometimes a two-storey building is just a two-storey building.”
But what he loves, and what he tries to imprint on the city, is a sense of purpose and meaning in every signature building or public open space.
“It is that tension between fitting in and standing out that needs to be achieved. I think the kind of buildings I will be showing you today achieve that tension,” he said.
Naturally predisposed to being positive, Jackson’s list of best easily outweighs his list of worst. It is easy to find bad examples of design and architecture, he says, but he wanted to show more those that he thinks adds to that peculiar word, “Vancouverism”.
Surprisingly, his initial list of likes and dislikes did not include some of the city’s landmarks that very well define “Vancouverism”. The art deco Marine Building, the Hotel Vancouver, the repurposed old courthouse, the Dominion building, even City Hall, weren’t on his tour, although he talked about some of them later.
“That’s because they are icons that would be at the top of everybody’s list,” he said. “They’re still my favourites, but I wanted to show you other buildings that I admire.”
The argument that what makes good architecture and what doesn’t is ageless, but often seasoned and changed by time.
“(In) the modernist movement, there were a number of buildings that were built post war that people hated. The Queen Elizabeth Theatre was one. The old library on Burrard, and the B.C. Electric building,” Jackson said. “Those were all modern expressions of architecture that were not embraced, were not accepted, and were roundly criticized for taking a different approach to what people at that time determined what was then ‘Vancouverism’, which was a lot of stone and a lot of brick.”
Vancouverism can also be found in the postwar bungalows of the east side, the boxy Vancouver specials of the 1970s, the monster houses of Kerrisdale of the 1980s, and tall condo towers of the 1990s and 2000s that line the north shore of False Creek.
Jackson points to Vancouver’s art deco period as having a major influence.
“There are a number of prewar buildings that add to our skyline and remind us where we’ve come from. They also remind us of the pride people used to take in their buildings in terms of detail and the expense they went to to build these incredible structures”
Asked if he thinks that pride doesn’t exist anymore, he says today’s builders and architects could take a page from their predecessors. “I think it does exist, but it does compete with corporate bottom line,” he says.
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http://www.vancouversun.com/Brian+Jackson+Vancouver/10849244/story.html
I suppose the conclusion is that MacArthur Glen could have gone with the corporate bottom line and built a cookie cutter outlet mall
like the Seattle Premium Outlets (which if you know the chain, looks like any other Premium Outlet Mall with open passages and a fabric or other canopy over a food court area) or like any one of the SmartCentres plazas.
This is new construction on an empty field - so there's nothing to "fit in" with.
And they probably wanted something that would stand out - and not look be mistaken for the Canada Post sorting plant
or another industrial warehouse that's a square box with few West Coast parallam and glass canopies.
Last edited by officedweller; Mar 3, 2015 at 10:41 AM.
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It should feel like entering a dungeon.
image from pacific blasting
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