How excited was I when our guidebooks (that double as tickets!) for the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Heritage House Tour 2012 arrived? Very! I (perhaps a bit too) feverishly made my way through this 24 page booklet that offers extensive insight into the 10 heritage homes who will be opening their doors to you on June 3rd, and then set my sights accordingly.

The deal is that ten privately-owned heritage buildings will literally open their doors for one day to people who take themselves on a self-guided tour with the “ticket” (booklet) that costs $40 and serves as a fundraising initiative for the Heritage Foundation.

My favourite on the list of buildings to hit up is Le Marche St George. My family picks up an organic box here every week but for obvious reasons we’ve never been beyond the storefront and into the homes that are attached to this corner grocery store located on St George Street in East Van. The booklet tells me that there’s a ground level home in the back as well as two apartments above that will also have theirs doors open to visitors. Five paragraphs outline the history of the building and the work the current owners have put into restoring it to near-original condition.

Photos: Martin Knowles Photo/Media www.mkphotomedia.com

The inside of the store is always a pleasure (shown in the photos below) and I can’t wait to see what hides behind the doors at Le Marche that we usually can’t open.

Events details:
Sunday, June 3rd from 10 am – 5 pm is the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s 10th Annual Heritage House Tour. This year’s one-day self-guided tour of 10 houses includes a church converted to strata units, Shaughnessy mansions, Cedar Cottage homes, a restored corner store, and an old wood frame bank building with strata units to the rear. Tickets are $40+hst. To purchase tickets or for more info visit: www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org or call 604 264 9642

Professional skateboarder, Rick McCrank, often works under Vancouver’s viaducts

Back in the late 1960′s the viaducts were constructed because a freeway was supposed to meet them on the other side of Downtown but the residents of Strathcona and Chinatown rose up and opposed that paved thoroughfare that would have made our city look a LOT different some 40 years later, and it was obviously never built. Recently the City of Vancouver held a challenge inviting people to submit their concepts in 3 different categories: 1. A way to connect the core of the city if the viaducts weren’t there 2. Changing the existing viaducts into something, anything and 3. The Wildcard for random ideas. There were over 80 ideas, from well thought out plans complete with renderings all the way to basic concepts involving My Little Pony. All of them were interesting. Click the image below to visit the site where they’re presently being showcased.

Personally, I’d be happy to see them go and have some brighter space North of False Creek, perhaps more housing, green space and an urban trout pond (I should have submitted an entry to the challenge!). When I sat down for coffee with former City of Vancouver Chief Planner Brent Toderian last week I asked what he thought and his reply was “Take ‘em down”. City Councillor Geoff Meggs has been leading the charge on this conversation and I haven’t talked to him about it directly but judging from all of the POSTS on his blog that concern the subject I’m fairly certain he’s in favour of “total removal” as well. You can meet with him tomorrow at an SFU City Conversation event called Viaducts or Via-don’ts: The future of upper False Creek. Also speaking will be Urban Designer and Crosstown resident Frank Ducote, and Shirley Chan, whose family led the 1960s fight to stop the freeway I mentioned earlier in this piece. After they speak you’re invited to ask questions as well as share your opinions and ideas.

Event details:
When: Thursday, May 17, 2012
Time: 12:30-1:30 pm
Location: SFU Harbour Centre, Room 1425
LINK TO INFORMATION

The Interior of the Vancouver Opera House, (Item Bu P7) Photo by William Stark

Theatre backdrops can be very temporal artifacts, painted at grand scale, and then carted off stage or perhaps painted over for the next show. The artists who paint these backdrops most likely never managed to get top billing on the programs if they were credited at all, making them a very elusive bunch to track down. Fortunately, we do have some record of their work, most typically in publicity photography taken on stage.

With the recent upgrade to the Vancouver Archives search engine, photos like these become a whole lot easier to find and enjoy. I’ve collected a small gallery of images featuring some Vancouver backdrops which showcase the stage, theatres, and performers alike.

The Columbia Theatre, 1920 (Item : CVA 99-1379) Photo by Stuart Thomson

The Columbia Theatre was situated at 64 West Hastings, across the street from where the Paris Block is today. Here’s another picture of the theatre and its marquee by Stuart Thomson.

The Kiwanis Glee Club at the Capitol Theatre, 1922 (Item: CVA 99-3439) Photo by Stuart Thomson

This image was taken just prior to Christmas, 1922, and incidentally, it was just 2 months earlier that the Harold Lloyd comedy Grandma’s Boy played at the very same theatre (October 2-7, 1922).

St. George’s School play “Robin Hood”, 1939 (Item : CVA 805-26) Photo by the Dominion Photo Co.

This image above is a fairly recent addition to the Vancouver Archives, donated in 2008 by Nigel Toy, St. George’s School Headmaster. It goes to show you how important artifacts of a city’s history can still be found in private collections everywhere! This serves as a great reminder to everyone – if you have such artifacts in your possession, consider donating them to the archives. And thanks Nigel, for this donation!

Demolition of the Lyric Theatre, 700 block Granville, 1969 (Item : CVA 1348-37) Photo by Nicholas Russell

This final image shows the important work of engaged citizens, documenting their city’s history. According to the Vancouver Archives, Nicholas Russell lived in Vancouver’s West End in 1968, and he was very concerned about the demolition of the older wooden houses in the West End. His photography also captured many homes that are no longer in existence today. In a way, everyone who helped to document the Grandma’s Boy ghost sign was following in Nicholas Russell’s footsteps, providing a visual record of our city for future generations.

For further reading, I’ve written even more about this post over at Illustrated Vancouver. I’m taking a little hiatus, but I plan to be back soon! In the mean time, keep documenting the city while I’m away!

Our Host: Prophecy Sun

Whose that? Prophecy is a performance artist and musician

Beverage Offered: wildberry smoothy AND mint tea

Where do you live?

I live in Mount Pleasant, it’s an old house in the industrial area. There are only a couple of old houses and everything else has been torn down. I’m living with my partner Darren and we’re just really excited to be here.

How would you describe your place?

It’s an eclectic mish-mash of pieces that have been found in alleyways, pieces that have been handed-down and chance finds in vintage stores, or just things that either of us just come across. And then there’s pieces of art that both Darren and I have accumulated over the years as well. We do with what we have. In the backyard we’re making a fence our of palettes because we like to recycle and reuse things. I love the challenge of just finding pieces that work, there’s some thing that don’t work so I just put them out and somebody else takes them. Darren and I really share a similar aesthetic.

The house seems fun-is that important to you?

Yes-the living space for me is also a work space and also is a place to relax and just have a good time. My home is a space that doesn’t have any limitations-it can be pretty much anything.

Can you tell me about this area with the screen?

We’re in quite a large living room right now and in one one half of it, I’ve put an old window . This window is from a building on East 8^th where I used to have a restaurant called Wink. I’ve kept it and I’ve used it in dance performances, and in different ways in different spaces, and in this space it really works because the living room is so big. I wanted to make a little seating area and I use it as a semi-divide. On the other side we’ve turned that into more a jam space/library.

Seems like you really make use of your space.

Yeah-we have friends over and I try and have a weekly luncheon. We really like to have guests over and share our food.  We jam 3 days a week here, we use it as an art space, so if I’m collaging and making things. It’s been used in a music video for a friend who last week needed a place. I think a home place should be a space that you can do anything in. It’s also obviously our sanctuary. We have a old bathtub, and it was originally in the house next door so when Darren and I were moving in here, we repainted and we got to put the old tub in the space as well.

Any favourites in the house?

Darren and I spend a lot of time in the kitchen because it’s really bright and airy and I think we’re really excited because the garden is in the back and it gets so much sunlight. The built in furniture is  great.

If there was one thing you could change, what would it be?

This is a drop ceiling and we’d allow it to be the old wood that’s on the top. It would just open up even more.

She spotted it as she was walking by the site and calls it “Intelligent Demolition?”. She’s wondering if it’s the handiwork of a creative jackhammer-er or if it’s just serendipity? Every residential unit sold prior to the actual sales launch so we definitely agree with her that this piece of concrete must have brought them good karma!

He released an open source instruction manual on how to construct a 30 storey tower MADE OUT OF WOOD!

The document is 240 pages long and is entitled “The Case For Tall Wood Buildings: How Mass Timber Offers a Safe, Economical, and Environmentally Friendly Alternative for Tall Building Structures”. It can be downloaded in its entirety for free RIGHT HERE. Wowza.

Over the past few years, we’ve experienced a series of fairly significant anniversaries in Vancouver. The 125th anniversary of Vancouver last year stands out of course, but there have been others marked with fanfare, like the 100th anniversary the William Harbeck film in 2007, which was also the 100th anniversary of Purdy’s Chocolates. Don’t forget there was the PNE’s 100th anniversary in 2010, the 40th anniversary of the Canucks, followed by the 25th anniversary of Expo 86 last year. Earlier this year, the Vancouver Sun celebrated their 100th anniversary, and just last month Heritage Vancouver commemorated the 40th anniversary of Howard Hughes’s visit to the Bayshore. With all this anniversary fever, I’d like to point your attention to an upcoming book launch that marks it’s own significant anniversary.

Michael Kluckner‘s Vanishing Vancouver: The Last 25 Years is an entirely new book scheduled to be released on April 30th, 2012 by Whitecap Books. The first edition of this book was published in 1990, and this new edition will take a look back at Vancouver’s disappearing landmarks over the past 25 years. This captures the city’s contemporary history post-Expo 86, and Michael states on his website that only about 20% of the text and illustrations refer back to the original edition published in 1990. That 80% new material translates to over 200 new illustrations, which I can assure you, are loaded with insight, expertise, and artistry.

There are a host of events relating to this book launch scheduled for the month of May which I highly recommend you consider adding to your agenda:

• Thursday, May 3rd, 7 pm: book launch party at the People’s Co-op Bookstore, 1391 Commercial Drive, 604-253-6442.
• Wednesday, May 16th, 7:30 pm: illustrated lecture, “The Evolution of the Vancouver House” at the Unitarian Church Hall, 49th and Oak. Tickets are available in advance through the Vancouver Heritage Foundation for $12. There may be tickets available at the door if the event doesn’t sell out, but I suspect that it might; I recommend getting your tickets in advance. Note this is the pre-tour lecture for the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s annual heritage house tour.
• Thursday, May 24th, 7:30 pm: illustrated lecture on the book for the Vancouver Historical Society at the Museum of Vancouver, free.
• Saturday, May 26th, 1-3 pm: book signing at Hager Books, 2176 West 41st, 604-263-9412.

To give a taste of the book, Michael gives a preview of the book on his website, but I highly recommend checking out this edition in person. I think you’ll find this is yet another must-have Vancouver title to add to your library.

Click HERE to see my view I gave inside one of the Opsal Steel buildings right before they took the building down a year and a half ago…

Image: BIG

Details on the Open House after the jump…

Image: BIG

Of the new venture, Michael says that “It is a very exciting time that allows me to be true to my aspiration that design is much more than beauty and that the stories of each project are part of a global conversation to address the social, economic, cultural and environmental issues of our time. We will continue to balance projects in the developing world with those in the developed. A foot in two worlds.”

One of the most exciting upcoming projects is the Worlds Tallest Wood Tower which is basically putting to use a system that Michael developed to build up to 30 storey towers in a carbon neutral structural system. It’s the first of its kind in the world, and it was born here in Vancouver.

Check out MGA on FACEBOOK and stay tuned for more Random Acts!