Celebrating BOMA’s 100th Anniversary in 2011, by Barb Wood. Last month Barb Wood celebrated her 30th year in the illustration business; she blogged about the occasion here, where she posted a few celebratory images from her portfolio.
Goad’s atlas of the city of Vancouver, British Columbia and surrounding municipalities in four volumes from 1912. Fire insurance maps are great; I’m posting it here primarily for the typography, but the maps are great too! From Collections Canada, which has volume one (Kits) and two (Grandview) posted out of four. Via Michael Kluckner’s recent blog post at grandviewheritage.blogspot.com.
The Romance of Vancouver, a BC Electric trolley advertisement for the Vancouver Sun by cartoonist Fraser Wilson. I digitally enhanced this image, removing the brown ‘cardboard’ patina of the background to replicate what the original drawing might have looked like on paper. Wilson’s signature appears in the bottom right of the ad, and in the bottom left are the words:
José María Narváez
(1791) Discovers Vancouver
Wikipedia entry for José María Narváez
Fraser Wilson, mentioned here recently, was the cartoonist who sold his first cartoon at the age of 12 (circa 1917), and he continued to draw comics for the Vancouver Sun and the Daily Province until 1947. This trolley ad is one of the three referenced in this Vancouver Sun article, where John Mackie writes:
They probably date to the late 1930s and early ’40s, when posters were mounted on the front of streetcars. They survived because somebody packed them into walls as insulation and they were unearthed when houses were renovated or torn down.
The expression “The Romance of Vancouver” was a slogan used by the Vancouver Tourist Association on a number of occasions. Books were published with this title in 1926, 1929, 1936 (the year of the city’s Golden Jubilee), and in 1940. I wonder if this ad was part of a larger Golden Jubilee nostalgic ad campaign featuring all the early explorers; has anyone seen any others?
I’m putting out the call for anyone who has an old BCER trolley poster in their collection to get in touch with me. I’d love to build a larger visual database of these ads, and if possible, I’m attempting to make digital recreations of the posters I’ve seen thus far. Of course, you can read a lot of these ads in period photographs, but I’m super keen on seeing the real thing. You can get in touch with me by Twitter or via this site at illustratedvancouver.ca/submit. You can see my growing digital archive of this posters here.
An ink on paper drawing submitted by Louise Phillips dating back to November 30th, 2005. Louise writes:
I thought of this drawing today, a few years after it was made, but the map of Vancouver and my impression of Richmond remain true to the time of its making.
The drawing is in ink on the cover of an environmentally friendly notebook found on sale in a Steveston shop. I was newly arrived from Toronto and experiencing a strange kind of culture shock. Drawing and writing were a guarantee of sanity.
Perhaps it is timely in this year, 2012 - the Queen’s Jubilee Year, to look back at the past!
Thanks Louise!
Store flyer for Belleek China, from the D.E. Hutchinson Jewelers store in Vancouver, previously located at 683 Granville Street (now the site of the Sears building, former Eaton’s Pacific Centre). This is a bit late for Valentine’s, but better late than never? Oh, except D.E. Hutchinson closed decades ago, before Eaton’s Pacific Centre was built. Actually, I don’t see the business listed in the 1940 phone book, so that means they must have been there some time later from the 1940s-1960s. Store flyer for sale on ebay. Happy Valentine’s Day none the less!
YMCA Building at Burrard and Barclay St by McCarter & Nairne, perspective view 1940, pencil and colour wash on illustration board. Reprinted on page 56 of Trace Magazine, July - Sept 1981. The building recently went through a complete redevelopment and is now known as The Robert Lee YMCA Building, joining forces with a 42-storey residential tower known as Patina. For those who want to read the fine print, here’s the City of Vancouver rezoning report and Heritage Revitalization Agreement from 2005. The Vancouver Observer took a tour of the facilities in this 2010 article. The numbers, briefly:
Number of units: 256
Cost of YMCA restoration: $67 million
Total project cost: $250 million
What I’d really like to know: cost of the original building in 1940 ??
Heritage Hall by Andrea Rodgers, another Buzzer cover illustration, via the Buzzer Blog. From the Buzzer interview:
Tell us about yourself and your art.
I like the aesthetic of rough hand drawn lines. Often working in pen, I like to add in watercolour and india ink. The unexpected nature of the medium appeals to me. Makes it more of an adventure. For this illustration I scanned it in and worked with photoshop and illustrator.How did you come up with the concept for your illustration?
Heritage hall is an architectural beauty in Vancouver. It was an easy choice to represent the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. On a good day – From this point on the hill you can often see the mountains and a good part of the city too…
Swing City, a utopian fantasy concept of a city, imagined by Roger Kemble, with P. Stephen Babiak and John R. Chislett as contributing assistants. From the October 1968 issue of Canadian Architect, pp 58-65. Presented here in post number 3 are 2 of the 4 full layouts from this article, with explanatory text to provide some context for these drawings.
Actually, I just realized this entire series of drawings can already be found online, along with a 1600 word essay to accompany the article, posted on Roger Kemble’s own personal webpage. Roger has also indulged in a few more of his architectural fantasies, including a some conceptual sketches showing what he would have liked to do with the North Shore of False Creek, given half a chance. He also shows one of his more recent award winning projects, the Vivo Gallery Residences in Nanaimo, recipient of the 2008 City of Nanaimo Design Award for a multi-purpose development. For more on Roger’s work, see this 2002 article in this Heritage Vancouver newsletter.
And incidentally, Roger’s own daughter is now an architect. According to the about page at Architrave.ca, she funded her University studies in Art, Art History and Architecture working as a model builder and draftsman for Arthur Erickson Architects and in her father’s firm Roger Kemble Architects in Vancouver.
I was impressed to see Swing City referenced in this U of T history of architecture course back in 2007: ARC 3033: Manifesto and Ethos through Postwar Architecture History in Canada. I wish I could have heard the professor discuss this work in class! I should also mention that this entire magazine article was originally printed on a special blue paper, a fitting tribute to blue sky thinking.
It was purely coincidental that I posted this series of drawings the very same week the City of Vancouver announced it was seeking a new director of planning. Will Swing City make a comeback and gain the approval of the next director of planning? Or will we dare to dream up even more fantastical plans for our fair city in the years to come? Time will tell…
ps: I also just learned that the domain SwingCouver.com is taken - it’s dance conference that just took place here last month! Have no fear, however; looks like they host an event once a year! Check out their videos from last year for some fancy footwork!
Swing City, a utopian fantasy concept of a city, imagined by Roger Kemble, with P. Stephen Babiak and John R. Chislett as contributing assistants. From the October 1968 issue of Canadian Architect, pp 58-65. Presented here are a couple closer detailed cross sections of the concept, post number 2.
Think back to 1968 if you will, and imagine a city filled with ambition, idealism, and poised to begin an explosion of vertical construction. It was the year Vancouver’s International Airport terminal opened, the Pacific Coliseum, as well as the Centennial Museum and H. R. MacMillan Planetarium, and Arthur Erickson’s MacMillan Bloedel Building too. SkyTrain was still almost 2 decades away, but the second drawing prominently features a monorail system, an integral transportation choice in a city which seems to have left the traditional street behind. This plan radically challenges all prior conventions, seeking extremely modern and modular solutions. It seems obsessed with scalability, and not so concerned with feasibility or sustainability. Would these ideals allow uninhibited human achievement, or would it transform the city into the Borg? A final post will include some of the explanatory text that accompanied these drawings.
Swing City, a utopian fantasy concept of a city, imagined by Roger Kemble, with P. Stephen Babiak and John R. Chislett as contributing assistants. From the October 1968 issue of Canadian Architect, pp 58-65. Presented here are a couple long range landscape sketches of the project.
From a distance, it almost looks like something out of District 9! In future posts, I’d like to show more detailed cross sections of this fantastical concept, followed by a final post with explanatory text. It’s certainly one of the most surreal concepts I’ve seen for the city, and yet, there’s more than meets the eye with this particular project!
Proposed pagoda for Pender Street, from the October 1968 issue of Canadian Architect. In a 1969 article from the Calgary Herald, ‘Corny’ Architecture Rapped at Meeting, it mentions that Vancouver is importing a genuine pagoda from the Orient, to be used as a pagoda; I presume this is the pagoda they are are referring to. Instead of the extravagant pagoda seen here, the city would eventually get the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden, which was built in 1985 and completed just in time for Expo 86. I for one am glad we got the garden over the pagoda; in this particular location, the pagoda seems clearly out of proportion to the street and surrounding buildings. One final detail to note; as you can see in the second photograph, Pender Street was once a one-way street heading west at this junction.
A 1968 concept plan by the Vancouver firm of Ehling & Brockington for the Brentwood Town Centre, via Gordon Price’s Price Points on SpacingVancouver.ca
Cover image of Chinatown, from the October 1968 issue of Canadian Architect, artist unknown. The scene illustrates E Pender Street, looking towards Carrall. Inside this issue are a number of fantasy concepts which I hope to feature in a series of upcoming posts. Click here for the Google Street View today.
2011 was a big year for Illustrated Vancouver, and following (late) on the heels of the Past Tense Vancouver blog, I wanted to add my own year in review, even if it is rather tardy. According to studiomoh.com’s best of tumblr tool, below are my best posts of 2011, automagically generated for your viewing pleasure. The results are in fact, not 100% accurate, but I speak to this in greater detail here at VancouverIsAwesome.com:
Visions of Metrotown, 1971. Via Gordon Price’s post on SpacingVancouver.ca, this was the caption below the illustration:
Multi-level Central Area: The main activity level is the pedestrian platform. Underneath is vehicular access, car parking, loading facilities and public transportation. Above are shops, offices and residential clusters.
The drawing was originally published in the 142 page book, “Urban Structure: A study of long range policies which affect the physical structure of an urban area”, written by a staff member in Burnaby’s Planning Department. I’m not sure if the illustrations are actually credited in the book; I’ll have to take another look at the book if I get a chance. David Pereira has brought this vintage publication back into the spotlight, and he has used it as inspiration for his own Master’s project thesis. Further context is provided in the comments by David:
…the rendering…was intended to be a theoretical mock-up of all the elements that Burnaby Planners at the time believed should be placed into these Town Centres. It was never an actual blueprint. It was more of a dreamscape, if you will. To find out more about which elements were planned for Metrotown, and why they didn’t make the cut, stay tuned for a future update on the story behind Metrotown…
