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  #1761  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2018, 8:22 PM
aastra aastra is offline
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Danbrook One in Langford, pic by seymour201 at VibrantVictoria.ca.



*****

Encore at Bayview, pic by Brian Smith - LunchWithALens at flickr.com:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bsmi067/42648062305/

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Last edited by aastra; Jul 22, 2018 at 1:01 AM.
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  #1762  
Old Posted Jul 27, 2018, 6:16 PM
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Corner of Johnson and Vancouver from early July:

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  #1763  
Old Posted Aug 3, 2018, 10:59 AM
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Some Langford photos of mine from June





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  #1764  
Old Posted Aug 3, 2018, 11:08 AM
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and let us know if you can come out one afternoon - Victoria forumer meet 2018
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  #1765  
Old Posted Sep 3, 2018, 4:57 AM
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Phil and I went around taking photos the other day. Here's the only decent shot I got. Hopefully he has some more :-)

I think that tower crane is for the sewage treatment plant

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  #1766  
Old Posted Sep 4, 2018, 5:42 PM
aastra aastra is offline
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Nice pic.

Brantastic over at VibrantVictoria.ca has posted some recent pics of the atrium in the new office block at Douglas and Pandora:

-----

Work continues at the Hudson as per Mike K.'s recent pic:



-----

Black and White on Fort Street:

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  #1767  
Old Posted Sep 5, 2018, 7:32 PM
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Can you ride a bike from Victoria to the airport safely?
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  #1768  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2018, 4:51 AM
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Reasonably so. Back in the day I rode to the air show and also to Sidney occasionally. I avoided the highway but some people didn't and still don't. Nowadays you could use the bike trails for at least part of the route, depending on where you're coming from.
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  #1769  
Old Posted Sep 6, 2018, 5:00 PM
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The Wade at Cook and Johnson actually seems to be getting somewhere:



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989 Johnson by MarkoJ at vibrantvictoria.ca:

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Last edited by aastra; Sep 8, 2018 at 2:03 AM.
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  #1770  
Old Posted Sep 10, 2018, 3:40 PM
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We're seeing some images of the firehall concept for the downtown Mazda dealership site:

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Last edited by aastra; Sep 10, 2018 at 4:20 PM.
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  #1771  
Old Posted Sep 14, 2018, 10:05 PM
aastra aastra is offline
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Encore at Bayview is nearing completion:



pic by erika348 at Flickr.com...

*****

Customs House project:


https://customshouse.ca/

*****

Residential phase of Capital Park in James Bay is sure conservative re: the overall scale:





*****

Ultra-controversial project in Cook Street village tops out... and once again we're left wondering why these little CSV projects are so ultra-controversial:



*****

Lyra at Christmas Hill, pic by MarkoJ at vibrantvictoria.ca:



*****

Still no sign of the orange cladding for Jukebox on View Street, pic by MarkoJ at vibrantvictoria.ca:

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Last edited by aastra; Sep 15, 2018 at 12:22 AM.
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  #1772  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2018, 3:00 AM
Vin Vin is offline
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The destruction of this building is an abomination. Shame shame, Victoria!

Quote:
Originally Posted by aastra View Post
Encore at Bayview is nearing completion:


Customs House project:


https://customshouse.ca/
Previous Look:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@48.42270...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.ca/maps/@48.42358...7i13312!8i6656
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  #1773  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2018, 4:59 PM
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What’s left standing and will be the facade of part of the new building is the original historic walls built between 1894 and 1898. What was torn down was a modern addition built in 1959.

No one can claim or should that it’s still a heritage building, but from the outside at least there will be nothing lost. Is the interior guts of an office building important to most Victorians, or SSP viewers from across the country? If so, I can respect that point. The developers did get a ten year tax break (which will be passed on to the owners) for heritage
restoration, but I think most Victorians were surprised restoration ended up being retention of walls only.

This is a $100 million project, so they could have attempted to reinforce it for earthquakes, although that would have reduced openness and views for owners, and with sky high unit costs (penthouse is 11 million) they clearly didn’t want to go there.

Important to know for out of towners that when the big one hits most if not all of historic Victoria will be rubble. In fact it’s not the 9.0 big one that is the biggest concern but two very shallow fault lines just off of downtown Victoria (Devil’s fault line and Leech River) that could do more damage and may rupture separately or be set off by the big one. Most earthquake proofing provides protection against moderate earthquakes, but to protect against the large scale ones that are coming you’d have to basically rebuild from the inside out, while trying to retain historical interiors. It’s incredibly expensive and rarely cost feasible. It’s for this reason that for the provincial parliament buildings the current thinking is to not not bother trying to earthquake proof it but to rebuild it after based on Rattenbury’s original plans.
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  #1774  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2018, 5:15 PM
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This view shows the new addition with the original in the background - photo by Citified

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  #1775  
Old Posted Sep 16, 2018, 9:58 PM
aastra aastra is offline
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I'll take facadism any day of the week over the outright demolitions that were Victoria's bread and butter from the 1940s through the 1980s. Heck, these days I'm thrilled when anything is preserved, even just a facade. And it's also a hugely positive step that the new building won't be a) some bland bunker, or b) something faux.

Pretty sure the preserved facade is the 1914 section only. Any trace of the 1890s architecture was wiped out as part of the 1950s project.
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  #1776  
Old Posted Sep 17, 2018, 12:39 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aastra View Post
I'll take facadism any day of the week over the outright demolitions that were Victoria's bread and butter from the 1940s through the 1980s. Heck, these days I'm thrilled when anything is preserved, even just a facade. And it's also a hugely positive step that the new building won't be a) some bland bunker, or b) something faux.

Pretty sure the preserved facade is the 1914 section only. Any trace of the 1890s architecture was wiped out as part of the 1950s project.
For a relatively young city like Victoria, even a 50's building should be considered heritage, especially one that was so beautifully built. Airplanes and cars built in the 50s found anywhere are now being preserved in the museums, so why can't a good looking heritage building renovated in the 50s be protected in Victoria? The City/developer could have kept the entire facade and just build the core. It may be a bit of relief that the pre-50s facade is preserved, but the demolition of the remaining is still an abomination.

That was a quality and rare granite/concrete structure that would be priced highly anywhere else in the world, but it is something about this region of the world where people can't seem to think and make good decisions.
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  #1777  
Old Posted Sep 17, 2018, 3:41 AM
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Thanks for the clarification aastra.

The 1950s add on was not a rare world treasured addition. It was a bland government building with some basic ornamentation. Time will tell if the modern addition fares any better.

Unfortunately we don’t seem to build iconic buildings anymore.
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  #1778  
Old Posted Sep 17, 2018, 6:35 PM
aastra aastra is offline
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Quote:
...especially one that was so beautifully built
The 1950s office block was a horrible bunker of a building and easily the greatest singular offense ever against Victoria's grand harbour milieu.

The 1890s post office was actually the first of the grand inner harbour buildings, lest we forget. It was the building that set the stage for the legislative buildings, the Belmont Building, the Empress Hotel, the current Union Club building, and its own 1914 addition.

I wasn't there when the post office building was demolished but I'm not kidding when I say I've lost many a night's sleep pondering it. It's one of the definitive examples of that post-1945 Victorian self-loathing, and it unleashed a decades-long run of tragic demolitions and modernizations that can never be undone.

And much of the self-deprecating rhetoric of that era is STILL alive and well. We heard it during the Janion saga, we heard it during the HBC building saga, we even heard it when the little facade was being preserved as part of the Era on Yates. We've been hearing it during the Northern Junk saga, of course.

The new construction for this project won't be any taller than the 1890s post office building was. But at least it will be allowed to be half-decently attractive and a wee bit showy (like the original), instead of dour and bland (like the 1950s and 1990s incarnations). It would have been nice if they had preserved some of the internal structure of the 1914 wing, but like I say, after everything Victoria has been through, I'll take it.

What was:

1890s:

pic from BC Archives...



1920s:

pic from BC Archives...

1950s:

pic from BC Archives...

1950s (not so easy to find pics even though it looked like this for ~40 years):


1990s faux-historic remodelling:


*****

What's to come (the best thing since the original building):

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  #1779  
Old Posted Sep 17, 2018, 7:59 PM
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Let's agree to disagree about the 50s/90s additions, but one thing we can all agree about: the demolition of the older Victorian and Edwardian structures. Victoria would've been so much prettier if these structures
are still around.

As for the 90s addition: Imagine this structure with the original windows replaced with wood-frame french windows/juliet balconies that come with flower beds, and the Government Street facade opened up for retail. It would be transformed into a beautiful structure that would fit the surroundings.


1990s faux-historic remodelling:




French windows with juliet balconies & flowers:
http://www.mytravelingjoys.com/2014/...-in-Paris.html


The new structure would just be sad, especially for such a prominent location.
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  #1780  
Old Posted Sep 17, 2018, 10:13 PM
aastra aastra is offline
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I doubt that I can express how strongly I disagree. Tacking quaint elements upon a 1990s faux-historic recladding would have been bizarre and ridiculous, like spitting in the city's proverbial face for the third consecutive time and calling it a reconciliation.

The lame 1990s faux-historic recladding shouldn't have been there in the first place. The only reason the lame 1990s faux-historic recladding was there is because the 1950s office block was such a woefully inappropriate lump, it absolutely begged for some sort of attempt at redress.

There's no problem here. Victorians will (finally!) be getting a rather stately modern building that acknowledges its setting and that lives up to it (for the most part), and also a preserved 1914 facade.
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