'We stand to wipe out a whole era': how the 1970s could vanish from Vancouver

[SpongeG]

An article in the guardian, an interesting read

'We stand to wipe out a whole era': how the 1970s could vanish from Vancouver

Tyler Stiem in Vancouver
Wednesday 27 September 2017 07.26 BST

The Empire Landmark Hotel is the latest brutalist icon set to be demolished in a frenzy of property speculation. Is it wrong to destroy an entire decade?


For nearly 40 years from his vantage point at the top of the Empire Landmark Hotel, Yunus Khan has watched Vancouver grow up. “You would barely recognise it,” he says of the city as it looked when he took his first job at the hotel, doing maintenance. Beyond the 42nd-storey window, the jagged silhouette of the North Shore mountains, the lush surprise of Stanley Park, and the cobalt passage of Burrard Inlet are just about the only landmarks that remain unchanged.

“These are all new,” Khan says, indicating a cluster of condo towers and the ultra-modern Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre further south. Construction cranes rise around them. “Any older building you see now, it’s going. They break it down, make a high rise.”

What the view from the Empire Landmark offers is perspective: on the city’s past, present, and future. But not for much longer. The hotel, a downtown Brutalist icon from the 1970s, closes for good on 30 September. It will be demolished to make way for a proposed luxury condo development.

...

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...e_iOSApp_Other

[queetz@home]

Oh man! The second SSP Forum Meet ever took place in that building (the first one was in Calgary). That is where I met Dylan LeBlanc, officedweller, phesto, smho and I think one or two other Vancouver forumers. Its going to be sad to see that building go...

[Dylan Leblanc]

yeah good times :-)

I actually just realized, I'll be going over to Vancouver on Friday with a friend and he happened to book us the night in the Landmark hotel - which is actually the last night the hotel will be open! I'll try to steal something :-P

[mcminsen]

Quoting a post I did recently in the Canadian Demolitions thread in the Canada forum. I was on a bus stuck in traffic a couple of weeks ago and noticed that from one point along Georgia Street all four of these towers aligned in one view. And all may be demolished.

Originally Posted by mcminsen

In Vancouver's West End...four towers, four demolitions?

Tower on the left of the pic is the Empire Landmark on Robson, to be replaced by two towers of 28 and 30 storeys. 1488 Robson Street.

Second from the left tower might be replaced by one 42 storey tower. 1640-1650 Alberni Street.

Two towers on the right might be replaced by one 39 storey tower. 1684 Alberni Street. More renderings. The tower second from the right (1668 Alberni) was built in 1990.



Sept.23 '17, my pic

[connect2source]

Vancouver has a history of recognizing architectural and design merit after it's too late, we've done this through every era only to regret it when it's too late. Now we're doing it with 1970's brutalism which was a key and intrinsic part of our history and was the signature style of Arthur Erickson. Fortunately we'll likely retain landmark structures like the MOA and Simon Fraser University but rest seem to be the new target of developers, very sad.

The building on the southeast corner of Alberni and Bidwell, slated for demo, has always been one of my favourites.

[Metro-One]

For me this is infuriating.

This is the most frustrating thing to happen in Vancouver in many years regarding architecture for me personally.

I love the Landmark Tower, it is a bold representation of its architectural era, it is a major signature mark on our skyline (both day and night), and the mediocrity that is replacing it makes it all the more infuriating.

At least I am not alone in this, I have seen quite a few articles now of people expressing their dismay over the loss of this tower.

Every reaction on the Canadian section of this forum regarding this demolition has also been one of loss.

I have said it once and I will say it again, give it 30 years, then people will think "how could they have torn down that classic example of 20th century brutalism?"

[phesto]

Originally Posted by queetz@home

Oh man! The second SSP Forum Meet ever took place in that building (the first one was in Calgary). That is where I met Dylan LeBlanc, officedweller, phesto, smho and I think one or two other Vancouver forumers. Its going to be sad to see that building go...

I went back for dinner last week. I hadn't been since that lunch; hard to believe almost 20 years ago!

[Calgarian]

The Empire Landmark is an ugly damn building, and I'm not sure I would want to be in it during an earthquake... demolish it! There have to be some decent 70s buildings there still, the west end was full of them last time I was in Van.

Glad the article has a pic of Arthur Erickson's Museum of Anthropology, that's one of my favourite buildings in the whole country!

[djmk]

my favorite quote from that article

"“Suddenly, tearing down a 42-storey high rise is economically viable? Even with the [real estate] market the way it is, no one saw that coming,” heritage expert Donald Luxton says."

Honestly, wow. What is happening to this city?

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by djmk

my favorite quote from that article

"“Suddenly, tearing down a 42-storey high rise is economically viable? Even with the [real estate] market the way it is, no one saw that coming,” heritage expert Donald Luxton says."

Honestly, wow. What is happening to this city?

What many of us had warned about is coming to pass.

[240glt]

I can't believe they'd tear it down. The Landmark has been a.... well, landmark on Robson as long as I can remember. We stayed there as kids when we'd visit Vancouver from the interior

It is a little sad that this is what it's come to. Throwaway 42 story hotel is only one year older than I am. Oh well it seems like hockey arenas are throwaway buildings as well, sign of the times I guess

[Tetsuo]

Seems like everyone has a story involving the landmark!
It was always that for me, a landmark representing a pree-2000 Vancouver.
Going through old family photos, the tower is featured in the background of many of them

Ron,

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by queetz@home

Oh man! The second SSP Forum Meet ever took place in that building (the first one was in Calgary). That is where I met Dylan LeBlanc, officedweller, phesto, smho and I think one or two other Vancouver forumers. Its going to be sad to see that building go...

And here I was thinking I hadn't ever been up there - thanks for the reminder!

[Bcasey25raptor]

Vancouver seems obsessed with turning into a shithole bore of a city.

The city has fallen a lot even in just the 5 years I've lived here. I can't even begin to imagine how much it had already fallen prior to 2013.

I don't want to go and I likely won't, but my anger with this city and the current trajectory of it's housing market and destruction of everything that made this city once grand is pushing me away.

Tearing down of Landmark is the last straw for me and shows this city now literally only cares about easy money and appeasing a bunch of rich old slimy boomer property owners who oppose anything that stands in the way of their perfect little village by the sea vancouver they remember.

Sorry for the profanities but I'm sick and tired of this shit.

[memememe76]

SFU is considered an architectural masterpiece? If the Surrey campus existed back in my day, I would have done everything I could to avoid Burnaby.

[EastVanMark]

Originally Posted by Bcasey25raptor

Vancouver seems obsessed with turning into a shithole bore of a city.

The city has fallen a lot even in just the 5 years I've lived here. I can't even begin to imagine how much it had already fallen prior to 2013.

I don't want to go and I likely won't, but my anger with this city and the current trajectory of it's housing market and destruction of everything that made this city once grand is pushing me away.

Tearing down of Landmark is the last straw for me and shows this city now literally only cares about easy money and appeasing a bunch of rich old slimy boomer property owners who oppose anything that stands in the way of their perfect little village by the sea vancouver they remember.

Sorry for the profanities but I'm sick and tired of this shit.

You summed up the situation pretty well, but hang in there! Maybe this madness will stop some day, and we can once again embrace the ideals that made this city great in the first place decades ago.

Truth is, the city has hated this building for years and was only too happy to accomodate someone who would get rid of it. Same goes for Harbour Centre. If anyone had a proposal to get rid of that, the city would be all over it. In instances where they can't control it, they try to go out iof their way to cover up the structure from view (like a certain other large building near Cambie Street )

[240glt]

Originally Posted by memememe76

SFU is considered an architectural masterpiece? If the Surrey campus existed back in my day, I would have done everything I could to avoid Burnaby.

If you're a fan of brutalist architecture and exposed cast in place concrete it's actually quite a stunning set of buildings. Terrible to work in though, there's very little for access.


I used to love getting service calls up to SFU in the winter. It'd be the only time I'd see sunshine for weeks sometimes

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by Bcasey25raptor

Vancouver seems obsessed with turning into a shithole bore of a city.

The city has fallen a lot even in just the 5 years I've lived here. I can't even begin to imagine how much it had already fallen prior to 2013.

I don't want to go and I likely won't, but my anger with this city and the current trajectory of it's housing market and destruction of everything that made this city once grand is pushing me away.

Tearing down of Landmark is the last straw for me and shows this city now literally only cares about easy money and appeasing a bunch of rich old slimy boomer property owners who oppose anything that stands in the way of their perfect little village by the sea vancouver they remember.

Sorry for the profanities but I'm sick and tired of this shit.

Hey, if all that gets you steamed up, go and stand at Georgia and Granville and look at the ugly cheap-looking London Drugs store.
In that place was once a building - The Birks Building - from the 1920s I believe - done in an Edwardian façade with curved glass corner display windows
and elegant exterior tiling. Its loss to the city was tragic - and typical of the ignorance so rampant in Vancouver.
Excuse me if I sound snooty, but the really good buildings, like the MNP and The Exchange - are outnumbered by hokey-looking junk.
There. I've said it. Spit at me all you want, folks. I won't back down.

[Bcasey25raptor]

Look at the towers being considered and Built in seattle just a few hours south of here.

The cost of real estate in vancouver is double what it is in seattle yet our developers are so unimaginative and won't even entertain building great buildings.

This is helping fuel the soullessness of Vancouver, copy paste spandrel messy glass towers everywhere which all look the same and are built by developers for quick sale and profit and no interest in actually preserving the liveability for the residents.

There was a time this city stood for something and when such policies were beneficial, but now it's serving to turn our fair city into nothing but a resort for foreign wealth.

That is if it hasn't already become just a resort, most people I know from here still live here so the city isn't dead yet, but it is dying and theres barley any desire to turn things around.

Landmark isn't a building that is flashy, good looking, or any of that, but it's living history and well, it's a landmark. Tearing it down because some people don't like it now and they desire profit above all else shows how shortsighted our planners are.

Yet one of you claims the city would happily also throwaway Harbour Centre? Again thats a landmark, one of the few buildings in our city people can recognize as distinctly our own, why is Vancouver so obsessed with destroying it's history and identity? The past might not be pretty but it's still our past and it's better it remains here so newer generations can marvel at the past generations' projects and never forget how we got here.

[240glt]

^ to be fair though, that's not really a Vancouver specific phenomena. It's more of a young city/ western thing. Edmonton has destroyed almost anything historical that existed and replaced it with either gravel parking lots of ticky tacky garbage. People in this city are not only indifferent to the city's history they in a wierd way seem repulsed by it, and that's let to really awful redevelopments and a desire to wipe the city's history away.

Vancouver has changed a lot. I have some pictures on my phone of an old boarded up building over near gastown that has "Unlimited Growth increases the divide" written on the facia above the main level and something of a cryptic mural in the side that states:

"The morning of the sale, everyone was out there

Waiting for the doors to open

They all wanted what they'd

Seen in those pictures"


The photos I took several years ago have always bothered me a little, the juxtaposition of this building framed by modern highrises means something more than I think people realize

https://flic.kr/p/YWMHb6

https://flic.kr/p/BQKE63