‘Exploring Vancouver’ publisher, co-author seeking $100 donations for fourth edition in 35 years
Felicity Stone
Sun
We know them to see them. When we pass them in the street, their faces are familiar, possibly even their names. They are the iconic buildings and houses that contribute as much to Vancouver’s character as do the ocean and mountains.
“Buildings tell stories about the city’s development, history and personalities,” says Hal Kalman, a Vancouver-based heritage consultant and authority on the history of Canadian architecture. Kalman has been telling these stories since 1974, when he wrote the first edition of Exploring Vancouver, a guide to public and private buildings of historical or architectural significance. As the city changed, two more editions followed, and a fourth is in the works, to be written this summer by Kalman and former Vancouver Sun architecture critic Robin Ward, who also co-authored the third edition.
Kalman estimates 20 per cent of the 500 entries will be new and the others revised to some extent. Since the 1993 edition “Vancouver’s had a whole remake,” he says.
“The changes in the ’90s were the biggest since the pre-World War I boom from 1907 to 1913, and the ’20s.”
Twenty years ago, Yaletown and Mount Pleasant were yet to become household names. The photographs will be in colour for the first time, once again shot by professional architecture photographer John Roaf. A former architect who now works primarily in Britain, there is “none better at capturing one building and its context in a single shot,” says Kalman.
The photographs will also be available to the public through an image bank being set up by the Vancouver Heritage Foundation. To finance the project, which will be an invaluable resource for writers and researchers, the foundation has launched a fund-raising campaign.
A $100 tax-deductible donation will pay for one photograph to be used in the book and the image bank, and donors will be listed in the book.
“The board has never jumped on anything so quickly,” says executive director Diane Switzer. “Our mission is to create a culture of repairing, reusing and reinvesting in the city’s older buildings, and this book extends our ability to reach a bigger audience.”
Like previous editions, Exploring Vancouver will be a field guide small enough to tote with you, but with engaging architectural, historical and social commentary that also makes enjoyable armchair reading. Kalman writes for the “curious general public,” putting buildings of all ages into context. For the fourth edition, he has already written the story of the Olympic Village, including the financial aspect.
Kalman wrote the first book because when he moved to Vancouver in 1968, the scenery was celebrated, but not the buildings. “Everyone said Vancouver was a prairie town with mountains,” he says. “I saw it with the fresh eyes of [a] new Vancouverite.”
He is hard-pressed to name a single, favourite extant heritage building. As an example of high architecture, he likes the Vancouver Art Gallery, designed by both Francis Rattenbury and Arthur Erickson. Built as a courthouse on the city’s central iconic site, it was a “perfect expression of classical government power because you had to climb steps to enter.” In the egalitarian hippie ’70s, the gallery created a ground-floor entrance, and the NDP provincial government decided on a new low-rise courthouse for the people.
“The Socreds had planned a 35-storey courthouse,” says Kalman. “The NDP tipped it on its side and got Erickson to build a new accessible courthouse.”
He also admires the Marine Building, a “wonderful, wonderful art deco feast for the eyes.” In the mid-’70s he escorted some British dignitaries, including writer and preservationist Sir John Betjeman, around Vancouver. Betjeman declared the Marine Building one of the best art deco buildings in the world. As an indication of how things have changed, the group was not allowed inside because the men were not wearing ties.
As “a sleeper,” Kalman mentions the former Convent of the Sacred Heart, a 1912 Gothic revival building on West 29th Avenue and now St. George’s Junior School.
“Everyone’s favourite vernacular architecture in Vancouver is Craftsman,” he says, although he also likes surviving one-storey shops from the 1920s and intends to include some in the new book.
His most aggrieved heritage loss over the past 40 years is the Birks building, demolished in 1974 and replaced by the Scotia Tower. An 11-storey office building with white terra cotta ornamentation at Granville and Georgia across from The Bay, it was “the No. 1 building at the city’s No. 1 corner.” Kalman, who with fellow SOBs (Save Our Birks) Roger Kemble and Ken Terris, tried to save the building, told the Birks family: “Scotia Bank is the winner. You’re the loser.”
The silver lining was that the City of Vancouver responded by putting together its heritage program with incentives to developers to include old buildings in new developments. Recently, for example, developer Westbank received extra density for preserving the Woodward’s corner building and the church next to Shangri-La.
It’s all about compromise, says Kalman. The city recognizes the need for community to have amenities, and heritage is considered an amenity, like art galleries and green space. At the same time, property-owners have a right to make a fair and reasonable profit. Switzer points out that the four editions of Exploring Vancouver reflect the development of the city’s heritage program. The first three editions are out of print (although available at libraries and abebooks.com),but the new one will be published commercially and sold in bookstores and on BC Ferries. To support and be included in it, visit www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org.
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