The Vancouver Public Library Strategic Plan 2013 - 2015, via Youtube. Cue the video to 0:42 for a quick sketch of Library Square! Thanks, Richard!

urbansketcher:

Powell Street Facade

The Waldorf Hotel by Ash Tanasiychuk, from a series of Vancouver venues and galleries participating in the Olio Festival last year. 2012 was the last year of the Olio Festival, as the programmers are moving on. From the Georgia Straight:

After four years as one of Vancouver’s more colourful and certainly hipper cultural events, Olio is calling it quits…

…Color Magazine is still holding JAMCOUVER this summer, the one-day skate fest it pioneered with Olio in 2011, while he’s teaming with some of his festival partners to launch a smaller “no-filler version of Olio” later in the year called CULt.R. “It’ll be more focused,” he said. “Not skate-fashion-film at a thousand different venues; it’s going to be one party at one venue.”

Co-founder Dani Vachon, meanwhile, is concentrating on her new project; a group of “talented marketing, design, and arts-based individuals” offering their navigation services to local businesses called The Beacon Collective.

Since its inception in August 2009, the Olio Festival hosted over 30 thousand visitors and a remarkable roster of local and international talent, including such varied musical fare as Teen Daze, Cave Singers, Father John Misty, Chad VanGaalen and J. Mascis.

I loved the Olio Festival, so hats off to all the organizers who created the institution in such short order. And thanks for the submission, Ash!

Sketches of Vancouver by Jo Scott-B, a sketchbook, revisiting Neighbourhoods walked with John Atkin.

urbansketcher:

Dominon Building Vancouver

Vancouver Art Gallery by Dino Pai. I love the expressive energy in his drawings, I just had to show a few more!

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

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

I’m very much looking forward to this forthcoming comic set in early Vancouver titled Waterlogged by Cloudscape Comic’s Jeff Ellis. Look closely and you’ll see the Union Steamship Empress of Japan in the first panel!

japanese-cowboy:

Here’s a sneak peak of a few of my pages from Waterlogged.

1000 Facts about Vancouver, a miniature pamphlet produced by the Greater Vancouver Publicity Bureau [image enhanced]. From the VPL Special Collections NW971.133 V22tho Pam.

Hastings and Cambie Streets, Vancouver in 1905 (aka the Flack Block) and the Planetarium (now aka the Museum of Vancouver) by Vera Skye, 1975, from Dick MacLean’s Guide, December 1-14, 1976. Vera was featured in the magazine with a complete bio, which describes how she came to Vancouver from Ontario at age 16, traveled alone to the South Sierras, and worked as a lettering designer and assistant manager at the Old Pender Ballroom.

Heritage Vancouver tells the story of the 1908 Pender Ballroom here, but confuses the address slightly with its neighbour to the east, 319 West Pender Street. The Pender Ballroom was destroyed by fire in July of 2003. Pacific Coast Apartments was built in its place, construction occurring from November 23, 2009 to completion in April 2011 at 337 West Pender Street. As ChangingCity states, “Once home to Grateful Dead concerts, the site now provides 96 units of housing…”

Edgewood (Mr. T. H. Calland’s residence, Point Grey Road), by architect W. H. Archer, ca 1904. Photograph from the Vancouver Archives collection. Text below by Major Matthews just 5 years before his death:

”EDGEWOOD” - MOST BEAUTIFUL HOME WEST OF GRANVILLE STREET, 1904
Residence of Alderman Theodore Hatton Calland, pioneer, 1888, and Mrs. Calland

It stood between the C.P.R. clearing of Fairview, and the towering forest of Kitsilano, then without name, and known as District Lot 192, and upon a high cliff overlooking the sea, English Bay, below, and the mountains beyond. It was on the north-west corner of Point Grey Road and Trafalgar Street. The terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway line, 2,710 miles from Montreal, ended above the beach, the ”farthest west”, one hundred feet away.

It was approached from the west by a wagon trail, dust in summer, mud in winter, known as Point Grey Road, wide enough to permit a buggy to pass through the dense salmon berry and other bushes. At Boundary Road, now Trafalgar Street, the trail entered the towering forest; the Calland property extended from Trafalgar Street to Stephens Street. Before this house was erected Mr. and Mrs. Calland lived in tents upon the cliff. Mrs. Kate Alice Gertrude Calland purchased 2601 Point Grey Road, lot 11, block 1, district lot 192 on February 10th, 1902.

Kitsilano, named 1905, was the habitat of bear, cougar, deer, and was intersected by trout and salmon streams. Access to ”Edgewood” was, at first, by a row boat after a long pull from English Bay Beach. The nearest street car was at Granville Street and Seventh Avenue. Mr. Calland used a bicycle upon an abandoned logging trail. In 1906, Mrs. Calland was ill and was carried on a stretcher along the Point Grey Road trail to be terminus of the new street car line, the ”KITSILANO” line, at Balsam Street.

At an afternoon tea party upon this lawn, the confusion caused by the duplication of street names was discussed, and Miss Bulwer of Kerrisdale suggested they be changed to famous battle names. Alderman Calland, 1907-1908, arranged it. Boundary became Trafalgar; Richards became Balaclava; Cornwall became Blenheim; Lansdowne became Waterloo; and Campbell became Alma. Alderman Calland, with others, purchased the first few acres, about five, at Greer’s Beach, now Kitsilano Beach, and was reimbursed the next year when the City of Vancouver took it over as a park.

Captain W. H. Archer, the architect, was a strong advocate of navy affairs before there was any navy on Vancouver Harbour.

Presented, August 1965, by Mrs. John Allan Wetmore, West Vancouver, formerly Mrs. John Calland, daughter-in-law, and her mother, Mrs. P. L. Lyford, West Vancouver, and narrative approved by Mrs. Leslie Marshall, nee Calland, West Vancouver.

J.S.M
City Archives

Map of downtown Vancouver by Dennis Smith, a promotional for SFU campus downtown designed to be printed as a large format mural approximately 8ft by 4ft. This map includes a number of drawings seen previously here.

Vancouver From Kitsilano and Vancouver from Rowing Club, circa 1914, ink on paper, Ina D.D. Uhthoff (courtesy Mother Tongue Publishing), via VIAwesome.com. From The Life & Art of Ina D. D. Uhthoff by Christina Johnson-Dean, which came out late last year. You can purchase the book at MacLeod’s Books in downtown Vancouver. The entire series of Unheralded Artists of BC is outstanding, seeking to remedy some of the lost treasures of art history in our own backyard.

Concept sketches by Michael Green Architecture, from his unsolicited proposal for a decentralized VAG with 4 satellite galleries. I’m not sold on the concept of fragmenting the gallery necessarily, but I do like the idea of a really great sculpture garden. This would be difficult to attain with just a single site, as there would likely only be a small rooftop or courtyard space available. Thus, I find the Phase 4 Stanley Park VAG / Blowdown gallery very compelling. We have the benefit of the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale temporarily programming sculpture throughout the entire city, but having something with a bit more permanence would be nice.