The lost murals of James Blomfield. Until I read the book A National Soul: Canadian Mural Painting, 1860s-1930s by Marylin J. McKay, I was not aware that James Blomfield had painted these two murals in the former Royal Bank building at the corner of West Hastings and Homer (now part of VFS). From  Volume 18 (1905), Issue 10, page 149 of the Canadian Architect and Builder (available online btw), here’s the brief text description:

These wall paintings have an allegorical reference to Vancouver and the Royal Bank. Vancouver Triumphans represents the rising City of Vancouver with Industry on one side and Agriculture on the other. The figure in the lower panel is a personification of Acadia, representing the Maritime Provinces in which the Royal Bank had its origin. The coats of arms inserted in the frame round Acadia are those of the Crown, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and, (at the bottom) the City of Halifax, which is the parent city of the Bank.

Vancouver Triumphans may have actually inspired Paul Goranson consciously or subconsciously when he drew this proposal for the British American Bank Note Company in the 1930s. 

I can’t tell exactly where these murals would have been painted, but perhaps we can determine this after a closer look inside the building. Though I can’t be sure, these murals may actually be buried under a few layers of paint!

Speaking of lost murals, another one of James Blomfield’s greatest works was destroyed by fire on April 15, 1957. James had painted the ceiling of the ballroom at Government House in Victoria in 1903. From page 31 of A National Soul: Canadian Mural Painting, 1860s-1930s: 

The work was composed of colossal figures of Indian warriors on the spaces between the ceiling arches, connecting by an interlace design of pine cones, pine needles, dogwood, and other local flora. Painted with the totems (protective spiritual images) of various Northwest Coast Native tribes, these figures appear as “Canadianized” classical personifications.

Images B-08471, C-07768, D-03031, E-02750 of Government House are from the BC Archives. But if anyone has any pre-1957 images in colour, please let me know!

Special thanks to the VPL librarian for your assistance with this post!

Pacific Central Station by Dino Pai of urban-fairytales.com, via the
Vancouver Sketchbook flickr group.

TED2014 masthead, via TED.com. Coming next year.

From a box of Habitat Forum archival material located by Don Stewart at MacLeod’s Books. Lindsay Brown, curator of all things Habitat 76 writes on her site:

The clipping scrapbook is beautifully assembled and featured this tiny watercolour painting (no more than 1″ wide) of the main gate at Habitat.

Masthead for The World newspaper; “the paper that prints the facts”, dated Monday, March 3, 1913. Note the fine typography employed for the word “Vancouver”, complete with it’s own underline flourish. Thanks to John Mackie for submitting the image! The World was led by the following over its lifetime in print:

1888-1901 J.C. McLagan
1901-1905 Mrs. J.C. McLagan
1905-1915 L.D.Taylor
1915-1921 John Nelson
1921-1924 Charles E. Campbell

The masthead above ran during Louis Denison Taylor’s command of the paper, the year following the completion of The World Building (later known as the Bekins Building, now the Sun Tower). Oh, and that “copper” green roof? It’s not actually copper, but simply green paint! The year 1913 was also the year of a worldwide financial depression where the overreach of financial markets caused the building to go into bankruptcy. Ironically, this was also the year that the prestigious Birks store opened at Georgia and Granville, and construction began on the second Hotel Vancouver (1916).

You can read more of The World’s exploits in the book L.D.: Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver by Daniel Francis, much of which is accessible online.

The Lions Gate Bridge, with Stanley Park to the right, seen from the North Shore. This painting by Lyttle is dated 1980; I am unable to determine who this might have been, so any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

MAP 547 - Panoramic view of the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, 1898, via the Vancouver Archives. Here you can see a detail of Brewery Creek, and that smoke stack in the centre of the image? That’s the site of Charles Gottfried Doering’s Vancouver Brewery, later known as the Doering & Marstrand Brewery. Actually, after a merger with the Red Cross Brewery, it became known as Vancouver Breweries Limited. There are so many subtle name changes in Vancouver’s beer history, it’s hard to keep track! More about that some other time.

The City of Vancouver Archives recently announced on their blog that thanks to funding from the British Columbia History Digitization Program, they have completed a project to digitize 512 maps and plans.

Maps are great archival records, filled with meticulous details of the city, typically accompanied by exquisite penmanship. However, they are like many early illustrated works—difficult to attribute. The map above, one of the most popular birds eye views of the city, states in very fine print at the bottom right hand corner: “Entered according to act of Parliament of Canada in the year 1898 by J.C. McLagan at the Department of Agriculture.” In a larger embellished font, the map also states “Published by the Vancouver World Printing and Publishing Company, Limited.”

Both of these details are interesting because J.C. (John James Campbell) McLagan was the editor and owner of The World newspaper which operated from 1888-1924. Bessy Lamb gives an excellent early history of The World among other early Vancouver newspapers in this 1942 research paper at UBC, and when you’re finished reading that, you can followup with this paper on women in the early BC newspaper trade, as McLagan’s wife Sara Anne took over the paper after his death. But back to the fine print on the map; it’s still not clear to me what all of this means. Was J.C. McLagan also employed by the Department of Agriculture?

I dug deeper and discovered this Vancouver Board of Trade annual report from 1892, indicating that he was indeed on the standing committee of Agriculture, along with S. Oppenheimer and E.E. Penzer. Actually, J.C. was also on the Immigration committee, so he must have been a busy man! What I really want to know is who was the cartographer?! Did J.C. McLagan actually have time to draw maps in his spare time, along with chairing meetings and running a newspaper?

I believe the answer lies here, in this document on Archive.org (original document in the National Library of Canada). Manitoba and the Great North-West was published in 1882, and it features a full page birds eye view map of the city of Winnipeg, very much in the same style as this map above. J.C. McLagan’s name is clearly stated on the title page, responsible for the “Sketch of the Rise and Progress of Winnipeg”. If the history books have not yet noted John James Campbell McLagan as an excellent cartographer, I believe they now stand corrected.

I hope you this has demonstrated just a few of the things you can learn from an old map! Take that, Google Maps!

As mentioned yesterday, here is the cover of that brochure from 1956, 971.133 V224co PAM in the VPL Special Collections, “Produced by the Community Arts Council of Vancouver for the enjoyment of discerning visitors”. The cover image is unfortunately unsigned, so we may never know who it was who penned this, But it is nice to see the Hotel Vancouver and the Vancouver Block towering above the jazzy little city…

A map of Vancouver circa 1956, cartoonist unknown (or rather, indistinguishable - looks like Pecit?). This fold out cartoon appeared in a brochure from 1956 titled Vancouver, 971.133 V224co PAM in the VPL Special Collections. This brochure had it all; an essay about architecture by Arthur Erickson, an Art Gallery review by Doris Shadbolt, shopping with Pat Woodward. “Produced by the Community Arts Council of Vancouver for the enjoyment of discerning visitors.”

Another item from MacLeod’s Books in Vancouver, this time it’s the Vantech yearbook from 1931.

Perhaps it might be appropriate to mention two upcoming events here. It’s soon the 100th Anniversary of the death of E. Pauline Johnson / Tekahionwake. Join The City of Victoria’s Poet Laureate Janet Rogers for a talk called The Inspiration of E. Pauline at Rhizome Cafe on Saturday, March 9th at 7:00pm.

Then the next day, it’s Poetry in the Park for Pauline: Poetry Offerings at Stanley Park, at Johnson’s Memorial at 1:00pm (Johnson’s birthday). More info at http://www.herstorycafe.ca/

And for those who visit VPL Library Square, look for the display cabinet filled with Pauline Johnson ephemera on the seventh floor in Special Collections.

Concept sketch for Stanley Park Totem Pole Visitor Centre by Matthew Cencich, via flickr. 

This was a presentation board (building) I did for a visitor centre at the totem poles in Stanley Park in Vancouver.
The program called for washrooms for both sexes, a retail space, and a sheltered exhibit space. Too many people were peeing in the trees behind the totem poles and something had to be done. The open exhibit space was aligned to be exposed to water in both directions with a view towards the north shore mountains at the north end and coal harbour marina at the south end. I’d detail the cladding and upper glazing differently, and simplify the retail space layout now but I still like the double butterfly roof. This was presented to the parks board along with 2 other schemes…

The final scheme given the go-ahead was by Lubor Trubka Associates Architects, viewable here: http://www.lubortrubka.com/stanley_park.htm

Expo 86 Beer Stein made in 1983 in Japan, via ebay.

Parks & Playgrounds, Vancouver BC brochure, dated 1925, seen at MacLeod’s Books recently. This cover depicts a proposed monument (I can’t recall if it was a column or an obelisk, sorry) at the end of the causeway entrance to Stanley Park, seen here overlooking Lost Lagoon. When the causeway was completed, they didn’t end up with a stone monument but erected a flagpole instead.

A reminder; TODAY there is a Walk in the Forest event at VanDusen Gardens. Come down from 12-2pm for a little art mob excursion! The 1976 modernist pavilion originally known as MacMillan-Bloedel Place is facing demolition, and Michael Kluckner, with support from Heritage Vancouver, would like to see it preserved. 

The building known as the Education Centre (also the Forest Education Centre) is a modernist masterpiece lost in the forest of an untended section of VanDusen Garden. Built in 1976, it was originally known as MacMillan-Bloedel Place, named for its donor, the largest forestry company in what was then the largest industry in British Columbia. Its unique educational displays, including a 50-seat theatre, were called “A Walk in the Forest.”

Architect Paul Merrick, working then as chief designer for Thompson, Berwick & Pratt, set the pavilion into a small hill on the edge of a lake in the northwest part of the gardens. Its green roof was one of the first in the city, and its unique internal columns used some of the finest wood in British Columbia. It won the Canadian Architect Yearbook Award of Excellence Award in 1974, and was constructed by Halse-Martin of Vancouver. It was once an object of pride for the city, VanDusen Garden and the Park Board…

[read more]

Note this campaign is not endorsed by the Park Board or VanDusen Garden staff.

Coast Mountain Bus Company employees bid farewell to Oakridge Transit Centre, August 2006, a specially commissioned card by illustrator Barb Wood, who has been frequently featured here, and who has frequently included public transit in her artwork.

I got a behind the scenes tour of the Oakridge garage on one of the Trams excursions back in 2008, on the last ride of the E901/902 Flyers. Photos here.

Card courtesy of an insider at Translink. Thanks, eh!

More photos of the most glorious BC mural ever!

thevancouversun:

There were two World’s Fairs held in the United States in 1939 — one in New York, and one in San Francisco. British Columbia decided to have a showcase at the latter, which opened on Feb. 18.

It was located in the Western States Building, and was decorated with very 1939 images of BC — stuffed moose heads, stuffed ram heads, a stuffed ram, a stuffed bear, and some mounted salmon. Amid all the taxidermy was one of the great lost classics of Canadian art — a 12-part mural depicting a “specialized and typical form of British Columbian industrial, social or sporting life.

Sadly, the mural vanished after the fair closed. Ian Thom of the Vancouver Art Gallery thinks it was probably destroyed.

Full story here