Missing Piece of History: The BC Centre

[Mininari]

https://www.vancouverheritagefoundat...robson-square/

I am wondering about a missing piece of history from the Vancouver Diagrams database. The British Columbia Centre was proposed to be BC's tallest building by the W.A.C. Bennett Government, but was cancelled when the NDP took power in 1972. We ended up getting Robson Square instead. There is more history in the link provided above.

In anycase, I am wondering why such a significant historical proposal is not in the Vancouver Diagrams database? It was proposed at 55 Storeys, 208M in height, which would have placed it slightly higher than the Shangri-La (and afowl of view cones!!) If it is for a lack of an image of what it was to look like, there is photo of a model of the proposed tower in Figure 3.14 of Bailey, Rouse and Oke (1998): "The Surface Climates of Canada." The figure discusses wind-tunnel modelling of a proposed very tall building in downtown Vancouver, which is undoubtedly the BC Centre Proposal.

I wasn't sure if I should post a copy of this image, since it is from a book. (grumble... Copyright); however, I'd be happy to post if its ok (or share privately to an interested illustrator.

It's a 'Cancelled' project, but would look good in the Vancouver Buildings Diagram line-up!

Thanks!

[officedweller]

See blog here:

https://voony.wordpress.com/2012/10/...istory-part-1/


Robson square and the provincial court as originally envisioned by Erickson in its 1966 proposal
https://voony.wordpress.com/2012/10/...istory-part-1/

[EastVanMark]

That's quite the ugly building, but a shame at least something that tall didn't get built. This was proposed in the early 1970's and we still havent built anything as tall in our downtown core.

ITs hard to believe how ambitious of a city we were once upon a time. Now sadly, its all about smaller, quieter, shorter, darker-too much, too soon etc etc.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

well no view-cones back in the 1070s to interfere. haha.

but we were very ambitious at one point, even having the tallest building in the entire British Empire.

i always thought the current law courts building should have stepped up into a tower right where Nelson Square is.

[retro_orange]

What evidence is there that the NDP coming into power had anything to do with a design change of the project exactly? This sounds more like a thinly veiled attempt at slamming the NDP for something unrelated to provincial politics from almost 50 years ago.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by retro_orange

What evidence is there that the NDP coming into power had anything to do with a design change of the project exactly? This sounds more like a thinly veiled attempt at slamming the NDP for something unrelated to provincial politics from almost 50 years ago.

I think it's widely accepted that the switch from the SocCreds to NDP was what what prompted the redesign. As the Vancouver Heritage Foundation piece (linked above) noted "When Bennett lost to the New Democrats in 1972, the plan was scrapped in response to fears about the dark shadow the building would cast". As I understand it, the tower idea had not been well received in the city at the time, (but was an imposed Provincial idea) and the proposal to demolish the old Courthouse was also controversial. Arthur Erickson's idea to lay the tower down on it's side, and create a 3-block civic precinct with the Art gallery in the Courthouse was much more acceptable, and Cornelia Oberlander's landscaping made it even more popular.

[trofirhen]

.... just a point of interest, and an insight into the mentality of that time, when the original BC Centre was to be built under the auspices of W.A.C. Bennett, he said that the height of the building was to be one storey higher than Commerce Court in Toronto, at that time the tallest building in Canada. Hopefully we've moved on in our thinking, and don't just build height for the sake of height.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by retro_orange

What evidence is there that the NDP coming into power had anything to do with a design change of the project exactly? This sounds more like a thinly veiled attempt at slamming the NDP for something unrelated to provincial politics from almost 50 years ago.

that is what happened and is the only reason it wasn't built.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Politics notwithstanding, I think most of us very much prefer Robson Square to that... whatever the hell thing the BC Centre was supposed to look like.