TheThunderbird.ca from UBC journalism » Beyond Vancouverism: Urban design under shadows of glass and concrete

Saving society buildings key to Chinatown revitalization

Jessica Linzey — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:30:43 +0000

The Mah Society heritage building in Vancouver's Chinatown.

It’s been a big year for Chinatown.

After a decade of on the part of the City of Vancouver and the , the storied district has been revived as an almost fashionable destination, and the feeling in the streets is that what was once a thriving commercial and cultural hub may yet be again.

With of Chinatown, it should be a vibrant draw. But the area still faces enormous hurdles – not the least of which is what to do with its crumbling buildings.

Chinatown’s first settlers arrived in the 1880s. When turned the area into an ethnic ghetto, residents built a support network of to look after one another. Many provided housing, and it was from this period that much of Chinatown’s grew.

By the 1960s, Vancouver’s Chinatown was the second largest in North America, a distinct and lively cultural district near the heart of the city.

But 20 years later, as new Chinese immigrants increasingly chose to settle to the south in Richmond, or near Victoria Drive in East Van, the area was in steep decline, and many of the society buildings were abandoned and fell into disrepair.

This short film chronicles the evolution of Chinatown through its architecture:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In 2005, the Chinatown Revitalization Program released a that looked at the historical, social and architectural significance of society buildings. Its findings were telling.

Today, there are 32 heritage buildings maintained by 12 societies. Though the City has in place a to encourage conservation and façade preservation, a sizable injection of money will be needed to save most of these buildings, and the real character of Chinatown.

In the meantime, here are a few recent developments bringing renewed interest to the district:

1. In October last year, Bob Rennie opened a private art museum in the oldest building in Chinatown. Built in 1889, the building had been empty nearly 30 years before getting its $10-million facelift.

2. In January, council lifted height restrictions in Chinatown from 90 feet to 120 feet (roughly 12 storeys) with an eye to attracting new residential development.

welcoming visitors to the area. Symbolically, it may just herald a return to a vibrant nightlife.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user .
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Opinions diverge on future of Vancouver Art Gallery

Jessica Linzey — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:38:45 +0000

The VAG is currently housed in the city's old courthouse. It has 41,400 square feet of exhibition space.

An interesting debate is swirling around the future of the – one in which everyone, it seems, has something something to say, including

The discussion is broadly centered around whether to move the VAG to a new site or refurbish – where only three per cent of its permanent collection can be exhibited at any one time – at Howe and Georgia.

Abe wanted the gallery to stay put, believing as he did that the building represents “some of the finest work of two of British Columbia’s finest architects,” namely and . He wasn’t the only one.

argue, like Abe did, that the gallery’s location is too good to give up, and that with the site could be successfully expanded – perhaps with satellite exhibition halls around the city (see the in Los Angeles), making a gallery tour of Vancouver a possibility.

VAG an old city-owned bus depot site across from the at Cambie and Georgia streets.

In some ways, the latter is ideal: the design possibilities are exciting, and locating it here would give the city a of sorts.

But the site is prime real estate, which means the gallery might have to share the site with a condo development. It also begs the question: who should design it?

To the first point, a gallery sharing a site with a tower would not be unprecedented. The in New York City not only shares its block with a tower, it raised money for an expansion by selling part of its lot to a real estate company that plans to build .

The VAG is eyeing the Larwill Park site at Cambie and Georgia for its new home, where it hopes to double its current exhibition space. It is the last bit of undeveloped land in downtown Vancouver.

It’s the kind of design solution we may increasingly see as the city continues to grow and densify – but it may not be the right move for the VAG.

As for who should design it, some might say this is Vancouver’s chance to bring in a to give the city a signature piece. Think ’s in Bilbao.

Others could argue this is a chance to show off the great depth of our growing architecture community, and the contract should go to a local.

In an last week, principal Michael Green suggested a third alternative: hire an architect – regardless of pedigree – who will build something magnificent born of the unique place Vancouver is, something that reflects who we are.

Whatever the outcome, it will be a thought-provoking conversation to follow in the coming months, and one all Vancouverites have a stake in.

Photos courtesy of Flickr users popejon2 and

jmv

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Pecha Kucha Night Vancouver reflects depth of city's design community

Jessica Linzey — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:37:55 +0000

Stephen Cox once described the Vancouver design community as undiscovered territory – something he’s been working hard to change.

For nearly two years, the principal of local design studio Cause+Affect has been inviting the city’s creative thinkers to the stage for Pecha Kucha Night.

Born in Tokyo in 2003, Pecha Kucha (from the Japanese word for the sound of chit-chat) was devised by architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham as a way of bringing young designers together to share their work in public.

Since then, it’s grown into a massive celebration of local talent on a global scale – as of this week, PKN is held in 286 cities around the world.

The format of the event keeps the night moving at a clip: Each speaker gets 20 images x 20 seconds. Centre stage for a just under seven minutes, the best speakers leave the audience wanting more; the worst are bearable. Brilliant.

Here’s Booooooom‘s Jeff Hamada at PKN Vancouver Volume 6 in May 2009:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In Vancouver, demand for tickets is such that the next event will be held at the Vogue Theatre, where capacity (1150) is twice what it was at the Park Theatre, PKN’s last home.

The move to a larger venue is not insignificant.

The consistently high quality of speakers – a dozen or so per event – is a testament to the depth and richness of Vancouver’s arts and design community, and growing public interest in Pecha Kucha shows the great appetite here for engaging in creative conversation.

Gordon Campbell, take note: Some of us British Columbians still value the arts.

A diverse roster of speakers takes to the stage at every event. Here are a few of the designers and architects that caught my imagination last year:

1. Organelle Design partners Alex Witko and Courtney Hunt (PKN Vol 7) spoke to slides showing an amazing array of art – everything from architecture to lights made of harvested waste.

2. mcfarlane green biggar architecture + design (mgb) principal Michael Green
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(PKN Vol 6) spoke charmingly of his greatest passion – his two kids – to a set of beautiful images. The architecture is equally powerful: This week the firm won two International Interior Design Association awards for the Rennie Gallery + Offices in Chinatown and the LYNNSteven boutique.

3. Top city planner Brent Toderian

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(PKN Vol 8.) was a surprise hit, extolling his love for certain design features – in other cities.

4. And finally, architect Oliver Lang
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(PKN Vol 5) looked at how his firm is responding to urban population growth. Here’s that presentation.

Volume 10 happen April 8. Why not join in the conversation?

Photo of PKN poster courtesy of Flickr user kk+.
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Robson Square's Olympic draw re-ignites public space debate

Jessica Linzey — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:44:33 +0000

Olympic visitors crowd a re-vamped Robson Square.

When Arthur Erickson died last May, the beloved Vancouver architect’s landmark public plaza was under scaffolding, as it had been for years. Like much of the city, Robson Square was getting its Olympics facelift.

And what a facelift it was.

People came in droves for the music and the fireworks, or a turn around the revamped ice rink. Many came simply take in the atmosphere.

It’s difficult to know what Erickson would have made of the attention the crush of visitors to Robson Square drew throughout the Games, but I suspect he’d have been pleased.

For nearly three weeks, the area – which includes the Vancouver Art Gallery at one end and the Provincial Law Courts at the other – heaved with unexpected civic gaiety, and 30 years after it was built, Robson Square finally came to life as the uncontested heart of the city.

The renewed attention was a reminder of what an extraordinary civic centre Erickson had designed, and reignited an ongoing debate about public space in Vancouver.

While our city has tremendous public space in its seawall, parks and beaches, there have been calls for a more traditional kind of gathering place – a grand public square of the sort found in most great cities around the world, but absent here in Vancouver.

The loudest call for such a place has come from the Vancouver Public Space Network, a collective of nearly 2,000 members that has been advocating on public space issues in and around the city since 2006.

One of VPSN’s most successful initiatives to date was last year’s ‘Where’s the Square?’ design competition. It asked Vancouverites to imagine a central square – a place, as the New York Times put it, “for citizens to turn inward and for visitors to feel they have arrived”. In the end, it drew a impressive 54 entrants, with the winners announced a week after Erickson’s death.

Hapa Collaborative makes its case for a central public square.

Interestingly, the People’s Choice Award went to the Hapa Collaborative, which offered what it called the Vancouver Carpet, a “refreshed civic square on the north courthouse plaza…and a restoration of the VAG and former courthouse…”.

In other words, Robson Square.

Hapa’s was a prescient presentation, recognizing Erickson’s vision as a sort of welcome mat, and questioning the wisdom of current plans to move the Art Gallery – a debate that reached a fevered pitch this week, according to The Globe and Mail.

It’s an important conversation we’re having, this one about the heart of our city, and it gets more interesting by the day.

And that may just be the best Olympics legacy we could hope for.

Photos courtesy of Flickr user 3dpete and the VPSN.
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