2005
Top Ten Endangered Sites
Top 10 2005 |
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(Lost - updated)
Yet another gap in the Register, and another building under threat. Best known for his design of the Park Board offices at the
Beach Avenue entrance to Stanley Park, Percy Underwood was one of Vancouver's earliest practitioners of the International Style.
His architectural office, built in 1946 near
Pender and Jervis, predated by ten years the modern building
boom that transformed Vancouver. The office is built on the
lot fronting both Pender and Melville, near the apex where
these two streets converge. Underwood achieved maximum light
penetration by glazing almost the entire Pender and Melville
elevations, creating a fish-bowl effect that must have seemed
radical in 1946.
From the street, the design is simple and geometric:
a square, framed picture window divided by wood mullions forming
a grid of smaller squares. The building received a 'B' ranking
in the City's 1990 Recent Landmarks Inventory but lacks protection
because it has not formally been added to the Heritage Register.
Cathedral Development Group/Busby & Assoc. have applied
to construct a 28-storey tower project occupying the western
half of the block.
Although the building is potentially eligible
for heritage incentives, the development notice does not mention
heritage retention. To add insult to injury, the application
proposes an additional 10% floor space through the transfer
(purchase) of heritage density from another site. This is
inherently wrong: the City should not provide heritage incentives
from a donor site to facilitate heritage demolition on a receiver
site. Instead, the developer should earn additional floor
space by finding a way to incorporate the Underwood office.
The same development puts other landmarks at
risk: the Moderne apex building (occupied by 'Crimelab' Restaurant/Lounge)
forms one of the most dramatic intersections in Vancouver.
Although its profile is similar to the 'flatiron' shape of
the Europe Hotel in Gastown, this building, with its prow-like
front and horizontal mullioned glazing, strikingly evokes
ocean liners of the 1920s.
Also at risk are the 1951 Semmens and Simpson
architectural offices at 1274 Pender, within which many well-known
landmarks, including the former Central Library, and the original
Bayshore Hotel, were designed.
Update 09 April
2006: The building, along with every other structure
on this large triangular block, have been demolished.
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