56 responses so far ↓

• 1 Tiktaalik // Oct 9, 2012 at 9:29 am

  Disappointing. I thought it would be a great fit for the art gallery.

• 2 Joe Just Joe // Oct 9, 2012 at 9:35 am

  There is so much interest in this property that I don’t see how the VAG could’ve completed anyways. I would be surprised if the height isn’t relaxed a tad after neogiations and I’d be equally surprised if the FSR landed on the site remains at only 5 as allowed by current zoning, I will predict that we will see something much closer to 10FSR once it’s all done. Count me as one of the minority that doesn’t see the historical value in this particular building. It meets the street terribly on 3 sides, the only side that has any merit is still less then ideal to work.

• 3 boohoo // Oct 9, 2012 at 9:52 am

  Can’t say I love the building but I can’t say I’m excited for a Target to replace it….

• 4 Roger Kemble // Oct 9, 2012 at 10:03 am

  GOOD RIDDANCE

• 5 Roger Kemble // Oct 9, 2012 at 10:11 am

  Busby? Judging by the current crop of architects we’re in for much the same . . .

• 6 brilliant // Oct 9, 2012 at 1:23 pm

  @Joe Just Joe 2-how exactly does the Canada Pist building “meet the street badly”? Its one of the few distinctive buildings from the 1950′s downtown and with its massive box shape would be perfect for the VAG. Sadly, as Bob Rennie has pointed out, Bartel & Audain seem hellbent in their Edifice Complex.

• 7 Joe Just Joe // Oct 9, 2012 at 2:13 pm

  It’s the defination of meeting the street badly. There is no pedestrian interaction with the building on any side. There are blank walls, curb cuts, and no landscaping. It just isn’t a welcoming block to walk past north/south, or east/west either. It’s just as bad or even worse in my books as the Eatons/Sears building which is getting redone.

• 8 boohoo // Oct 9, 2012 at 2:15 pm

  I think it’s the kind of building that looks nice from across the street when you look up at it, but when you’re standing in front of it, you just want to get away from it.

• 9 Frank Ducote // Oct 9, 2012 at 2:26 pm

  With apologies to post-1940s heritage buffs, I have to agree with JJJ and RK – this building makes no more contribution to streetscape and pedestian vitality than, say, the existing Eatons/Sears/Nordstrom’s building does. Even less so, if anything.

  Discussing the future of this site and building for other uses has been around for at least 30 years, so rethinking it is long overdue.

  Having said that, it is a structural sound building with high ceilings and capacious floor loads (for trucks, etc.) that if adaptively re-used could accommodate a facility needing such unique attributes, like the VAG. This would only add to the evolving identity and strength of the Cultural Precinct. And could do so even if adding an office tower or three at the same time. As well as making it significantly more pedestrian-friendly than it presently is.

  If anybody can pull this kind of tricky business off, it is Peter Busby.

• 10 Jay // Oct 9, 2012 at 3:24 pm

  I would imagine that some significant office building would have to be built in conjunction with any residential tower in order for any redevelopment to move forward. Maybe a very relaxed height limit on an office tower.

• 11 Guest // Oct 9, 2012 at 4:23 pm

  The City won’t be relaxing view cone height restrictions any time soon – that was the purpose of the study a couple of years ago that resulted in the cherry-picked sites that lie just outside the various view cones – i.e. the Burrard Gateway site and BIG’s site (i.e. Granville Gateway). Expect a relatively short and bulky building to eat up all the availble FSR – ditto for the similarly view cone subjected Bay Parkade site.

  If the Art Gallery does build on the Larwill Park site – I wouldn’t expect the block to be surrounded by street front retail either. Has anyone seen a large institutional use (gallery or museum) where the ground level is occupied by retail stores (all around the building)? Probably not – since it reduces the institution’s street presence or impact. Those institutions have big egos – they want to be prominent – and having an entrance bookended by a Tim Hortons or an Aldo shoes isn’t going to cut it.

• 12 Frank Ducote // Oct 9, 2012 at 4:33 pm

  Guest – who is saying that all edges have to have stores in orsder to be pedestrian-friendly? Surely there can be institutional and cultural facilities that engage the street without storefronts. A decent public space, for one, would be welcome. Other street elevations or sides will likely have lobbies for offices and residential buildings, which can easily accommodate small ertaail uses.

• 13 Frank Ducote // Oct 9, 2012 at 5:01 pm

  “ertaail” = retail.

• 14 Ternes // Oct 9, 2012 at 5:53 pm

  I love this building! I think it’s beautiful and one of the few distinctive high-modernist buildings we have downtown. Guaranteed it gets replaced by a generic glass box if it gets torn down.

• 15 brilliant // Oct 9, 2012 at 6:52 pm

  @Joe Just Joe 7-as anyone trying to hang art at home knows, the more blank walls the better! I don’t recall the National Gallery in London having many windows. With the loading bays etc a talented architect could do something interesting.

• 16 jolson // Oct 9, 2012 at 7:11 pm

  Swap Larwill Park for the Post Office Building and refurbish for Art Exhibitions.

• 17 Joe Just Joe // Oct 9, 2012 at 8:47 pm

  Buildings can meet the street well w/o needing to have retail around the base. The existing VAG while not perfect, certainly meets the street much better then the Post Office building does.
  Personally I’m happy the pension plans are eying bids as that’ll ensure substantial commercial density.

• 18 A Dave // Oct 9, 2012 at 10:32 pm

  If it does get torn down, it will be a shame. Despite its overbearing utilitarianism, it has some interesting details and, as others have noted, some pretty unique and skookum features.

  There haven’t been many buildings built downtown in the past 25 years that one would consider an aesthetic improvement on this — bland, boxy, brutal and unimaginative pretty much describes this generation of architecture — the hallmarks of turning a quick buck. I agree with Ternes, you might not like this building, but one can pretty much guarantee what it is replaced by will be more monotonous Vancouverism.

  Of course, I continually scratch my head at Vision’s “green cred” when they turn their backs on protecting heritage buildings. As the saying goes: the greenest building is a re-used building. This is completely lost on the Greenest City crowd though, who prefer window dressing (bike lanes and community garden tax breaks) to any substantive change in the way the city evolves.

  Demolishing a tough-as-nails building like the Post Office will result in a massive release of CO2 and other pollutants, with a huge amount of wasted materials, not to mention all the new materials that need to be dug up out of the Earth to create the new buildings, however LEED they may be. Try to tell a Visionista this, and their eyes glaze over and they start spouting Sightline statistics like they are speaking in tongues… Facadism, buttressed by towering hyper-density, pretty much sums up all their civic policies.

  As for the VAG, it should stay where it is and open up 3-4 unique satellites to expand its reach (like many far more culturally successful cities do). One site could be the ground floor of the refurbished PO. With its exceptionally high ceilings and plenty of space for safe, dry storage below, it seems to meet all the VAG’s key needs.

  But if the VAG isn’t going to go there, then maybe the MOV should consider it as a downtown satellite, as they also only display a small fraction of their collection in their space. A downtown presence for the MOV would serve the city well.

• 19 ThinkOutsideABox // Oct 10, 2012 at 12:25 am

  Facadism, buttressed by towering hyper-density, pretty much sums up all their civic policies.

  I generally accept facadism when the external surrounding shell is preserved as a “skin” around a new interior. But to exemplify your statement above, 1215 Bidwell I think is a good Frankensteinian example of the worst kind of Pontiac Aztek rezoning proposal ever brought to bear by this current council & allies, as shown below, that should never be tried again:

  http://wera.bc.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/3bidwell..jpg

  Retail podium pancaked under 3 more modernist layers of STIR rental podium “affordability” (360 – 425 sq ft units), under glass condos, towering over a tacked on facade of the former heritage building, with a green living vertical fin tossed on the back side for good measure, in case it’s not clear that the “sustainable” box has been check-marked.

  Let’s not do that again please. Not at the postal building, or anywhere ever. Fanks.

• 20 ThinkOutsideABox // Oct 10, 2012 at 12:30 am

  Image link above no worky so well.

  Here is the wordpress post on which the image above sits:

  http://wera.bc.ca/the-rezoning-of-1215-bidwell-st-today-at-council/

• 21 Roger Kemble // Oct 10, 2012 at 7:31 am

  “ There haven’t been many buildings built downtown in the past 25 years that one would consider an aesthetic improvement on this — bland, boxy, brutal and unimaginative pretty much describes this generation of architecture — the hallmarks of turning a quick buck.”

  Well, A Dave @ #18, that is the point.

  McCarter Nairne and Partners were the architects for the, now up for sale, Post Office building completed in 1958.

  The same architects designed the Marine Building completed in 1932. You have to ask, what the hell happened to those architects’ design sensitivity in the intervening time?

  The original Post office Building, now The Sinclair Center, designed by Publics Works’ Chief Architect T.W. Fuller, was completed in 1937. There was talent in town at one time!

  Once we let in mediocre architects with their fiscal agendas, (i.e. the proposed Nordstrom, Marine Gateway etc.), the bar of good design is lowered incrementally: indeed dramatically.

  Olympic Village is a light in the darkness but its surrounding acrimony has put it out of the conversation until another generation sees it without the baggage.

  Reading the comments here, with a good portion of bloggers, you A Dave included, “If it does get torn down, it will be a shame.“, my God, where were you all brought up?

  All your discriminatory perceptions must be in the food carts’ greasy fare you gobble so freely.

  This town is continuing to rapidly degenerate into a bland gray cesspool: (“Concrete is the new marble!” Thus spake the late Arthur Erickson)! Much to the approval of the once and always local cognoscenti!

• 22 Raingurl // Oct 10, 2012 at 9:15 am

  I’d like to say see ya to that extremely non welcoming Canada Post building but the term “be careful what you wish for” comes to mind. They could tear that box down and put up something far worse.

• 23 brilliant // Oct 10, 2012 at 10:29 am

  @boohoo 8-aren’t most buildings more interesting when seen from afar? Do you find the Shangri-la riveting when seen from a few feet away?

• 24 boohoo // Oct 10, 2012 at 10:41 am

  I can’t speak to that particular building, but my point is good architecture and interface is appealing from a distance for a variety of reasons, and appealing when you’re standing in front of it for a different variety of reasons.

  A generic box can be ugly from a distance, but when you’re standing on the sidewalk in front of it, it could be interesting and engaging depending on the small details, uses on the ground floor, etc. Same can be said the other way around.

• 25 West End Gal // Oct 10, 2012 at 10:48 am

  WOW!
  Tearing down the Canada Post building will make the city of Vancouver… The Greyest by 2020 not The Greenest! OMG! OMG! What to do, what to do!
  Wake up people! First, nobody with real decision power at City Hall reads this blog, second, if they do they don’t give a damn about what your ideas are.
  Having said that. The building should be reused, though the VAG should stay PUT, they are doing just fine there! We wasted enough money on pet projects, it’s about time to save some.

• 26 Guest // Oct 10, 2012 at 12:06 pm

  Georgia Street is a “ceremonial street” with alternating plazas – as is Burrard Street. There are plazas at 401 West Georgia, Library Square, Quueen Elizabeth Theatres and CBC.

  None of those plazas have “livened up” the streetscape on that section of West Georgia – at least not during the daytime. The cultural and institutional uses in the area are in part what deadens the area during the day. New retail may not even survive because of the daytime inactivity in the area.

  The “blank walls” complaint is common with other large bulky buildings like the Eatons/Sears building. The solution for Sears -> Nordstrom was adding more windows and doorways (and another mall entrance). In the case of an art gallery, it’s likely there will only be one entrance (and the VAG didn’t want to share its site with any other use). If the VAG does more to the Post Office, I would expect an entire facade dedicated to the art gallery entrance (not one entrance among many).

• 27 Everyman // Oct 10, 2012 at 7:12 pm

  I really don’t understand why people dislike the Main Post Office building. I find it to be an interesting example of 1950′s modernism It’s cladding is warm, unlike so much of dowtown Vancouver with its cold glass or concrete facades. It would be perfect for the Art Gallery. Here’s a good shot of it when new:
  http://tinyurl.com/9cb8cs5

• 28 Frank Ducote // Oct 10, 2012 at 8:14 pm

  Everyman – thanks for the historical pic. Good shot of the original Georgia Viaduct in the background. What a humongous tank (?) next to it.

• 29 Roger Kemble // Oct 11, 2012 at 8:13 am

  Frank @ #28The big thing in the background was a BCER gasometer located on Keefer Street.

  I am flabbergasted at the posts rationalizing the old post office. Such pandering bodes ill for an enlightened cultural precinct.

  First off the viaduct has to go so a Georgia Street dead end can be used to coalesce the random plazas that Guest @ #26 lists.

  None of those plazas were conceived as a contribution to a cultural precinct: that’s an after the fact! In fact any hope of that now is risible.

  As of 2012 Vancouver architecture is in limbo, self serving adulation precludes any real examination or an epiphany.

  Maturing of protagonists would help!

  Oh BTW did I mention that horrible tower thingie under the W: Jim Green’s folly!

  Absolutely too high and absolutely an imposition on a once sensitive area of Hastings: revealing a semiotic demonstration of cheap concrete for the poor and even cheaper pressed tin balconies for the rich!

  How could the developer be so insensitive to his message . . . the blind leading the blind?

• 30 Ned // Oct 11, 2012 at 10:25 am

  Roger… ahem,
  Please, spear us with your “Down with the Viaducts, Down with the Postal Office” cry for help.
  Maybe you don’t understand what’s going on in this city… it’s not the quiet Nanaimo anymore!
  Last night at Roger’s Arena , Justin Bieber was giving teenage girls … inspiration. At 6.30 pm because of the downpour of people, let me lay it down for you … as I was leaving the area by EXPO BLVD, East… car traffic an all lanes was bumper to bumper on Expo Blvd. going West from Cambie Bridge through to Abbot, Carrall, Quebec, Terminal Ave. to Clark. Bumper to bumper Roger!
  As I drove under the Dunsmuir viaduct you could see the bumper to bumper brake lights from the cars trying to enter Downtown… all the way back to Main street. And all this because of ONE concert! Traffic stood still!
  Do us a favor, take buddy gregor and his buddy Meggs and screw up the life in Nanaimo instead. We have enough of this crap in Vancouver.
  As for the Postal Office building, what’s so wrong with that building, have you heard of retrofit? Something wrong with saving some money as some in here have suggested and preserving a building that really stands out from all the concrete/glass crap that we see around?

• 31 MB // Oct 11, 2012 at 10:51 am

  A couple of thoughts.

  I’m on the fence about the architecure. While I appreciate many of the tenets of modernism, the functional aspects of transporting and handling a huge amount of freight in an indoor downtown location dictated that a volumous and undistinguished box be created to the lot line on three sides of an entire city block.

  The essential architectural components of this building are limited to its facades and interior volume. Worth saving? I’d vote Yes to the Georgia Street side, which is better than, say, Park Place as experienced on Dunsmuir Street. The interior volume in many ways represents an opportunity.

  But pedestrian-oriented? No way. This building is all about transport trucks and main entry access by car traffic. Heaven forbid that a person should have to leave their car to mail a letter back in the day.

  My first impression is that a repurposing of the existing building into a major public facility like an art museum should take a pedestrian’s experience as the primary design consideration for the exterior.

  And that means a purpose-designed public plaza, and a transition from the sidewalk to the walls on Homer, Dunsmuir and Hamilton. By ‘purpose-designed’ I mean mainly that the design of the open space fronting Georgia Street should receive a serious, concentrated focus and great attention to detail and programming.

  The so-called Cultural Precinct contains several undistinguished left over spaces that are called “pedestrian plazas”, though in reality serve little purpose other than to funnel pedestrians into their associated building entries. They are marginally better than the parking lots that once covered these blocks.

  There are some spots with a little more activity and attraction, like the south side of the library or the QE plaza, both with key exposure to sunshine, a smattering of seating, the barest hint of delineated paving, and half-assed attempts at creating focal features, like the QE fountain or library “amphitheatre.” But these are in the minority in a collection of otherwise cold-hearted, wind swept surplus outdoor spaces.

  The Harper government doesn’t give a rat’s ass about culture, so it can’t be a shock when it overlooks giving the VAG a discount and sells a prime piece of urban real estate commercially, and we get yet more green glass curtain walled buildings on our so-called Ceremonial Street in the so-called Cultural Precinct.

  What would French government do in a similar situation in the heart of Paris?

  The other thing is that the post office has placed all its eggs in one basket: Air transport. This years after liquid fuels quadrupled in price after conventional oil supplies peaked, and when electronic mail overtook a huge chunk of paper mail. It’s easily predicted that increasing fuel surcharges on air cargo will push the cost of a stamp higher, and more people and businesses toward greater use of email.

  The mail used to be delivered by slo-mo heavy rail at very affordable prices. It may one day be delivered again by rail, but in the form of high-speed electric-based light cargo trains shared with other couriers and passenger trains.

• 32 MB // Oct 11, 2012 at 11:00 am

  @ Ned 30.

  What do you suggest? That we build eight more viaducts just to handle the peak car traffic congestion of breaking concerts and sports events?

  If anything, this is a call for more transit. These illustrations say it all:

  http://www.humantransit.org/2012/09/the-photo-that-explains-almost-everything.html

• 33 Roger Kemble // Oct 11, 2012 at 11:03 am

  Before you lecture me Ned @ # 30 learn something about the wide, wide world out there.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museo_Nacional_de_Antropolog%C3%Ada

  You cannot have “Bumper to bumper” and a cultural precinct all within a couple of blocks for heaven’s sake. That is my point.

  Your town has some real thinquing to do before you try disparaging little old unpretentious Nanaimo. Nanaimo isn’t trying to be anything other than what it is Ned. “. . . let me lay it down for you . . . ” Ahem! Smart ass doesn’t cut it with me: Ahem!

  Of course two arenas plunk together was a huge mistake. But that was yesterday!

  “ As for the Postal Office building, what’s so wrong with that building, have you heard of retrofit?” You’re deluded!

  “Something wrong with saving some money . . .” You are really delude . . .

  Bad architecture then! Bad architecture now!

  Now Vancouver has to face up to its sadness and face reality.

• 34 Roger Kemble // Oct 11, 2012 at 11:15 am

  “I’m on the fence about the architecture.”

  Cummon MB @ #31 get off the fence! It’ll poke a hole in your jeans.

  We’re not talking modern Architecture we’re talking bad architecture, worse, no architecture.

  Reading you and Ned, who I once judged as local cognoscenti opens the real truth of why Vancouver has always whined on about the world class mountains and the sea: it needs a distraction from the truth!

• 35 Ned // Oct 11, 2012 at 11:26 am

  MB #32
  I am not suggesting building more viaducts. That’s silly and you know it. Good joke though.
  Now, let me lay it down for you too, you have BC Place and Rogers Arena one next to each other…
  You DO NOT fill this arenas with people from Vancouver MB! You just don’t. You don’t have the numbers for that. They come from all over the mainland… by car, MB! When a concert starts at 8-9 PM and ends at 11-12PM in the middle of a work week you don’t feel like going back to Surrey, Coquitlam, White Rock by transit, with a bunch of 10-12 years old kids… MB, considering that you just spent a few hundreds of dollars to see Madonna, Justin or whomever.
  You’ll still have hockey, football and concerts coming in that area… for decades.
  But sure, why don’t you join Roger here and with the help of Vision’s friends (Concord, Westbank) screw up the city even more.
  Hey as I drove by last night, I couldn’t help but notice the almost full Concord property, the “one day we’ll build a Park in here, but for tax purposes we’ll value this piece of land at only $400000″ with cars for a $25 a pop – special event night! Nice deal they’ve got from the city. Paying almost NO Tax for a property which is literally manure SOLEfoods on one side and empty pavement on the other. BTW I’m referring to the piece of land S-E of BC Place.
  What are you suggesting?
  pretending these two major arenas are not there, and walk around them sipping pina coladas?

• 36 waltyss // Oct 11, 2012 at 12:03 pm

  I’m not going to wade into the bad, good or no architecture argument about the post office.
  However, Ned, the community garden/sole type lots have nothing to do with the city. They receive a lower assessment from the BC Assessment Authority based on use and they receive a lower assessment based on that use. The city has no say in the assessment which is what is lowered by particular use. The City sets the mill rate. The City, yes Vision, tried to oppose it because it affects their tax base but gave up because its not their bailiwick.
  So now back to the debate about viaducts and the Post Office building. My only comment on that is that without major alteration it is not street friendly and as another poster has noted, that end of Georgis needs some street cred to attract people down there beyond concerts at the QE.

• 37 Terry m // Oct 11, 2012 at 1:15 pm

  Ha, ha Wally,
  You are sucha scream… LOL!
  “The city has no say in the assessment which is what is lowered by particular use. The City sets the mill rate. The City, yes Vision, tried to oppose it because it affects their tax base but gave up because its not their bailiwick.”
  They have no say when it is about letting their election campaign main contributors getting away with their “returns” as expected…
  When it comes to anything else they have a lot of “say” from Coast guard being terminated, to oil tankers, to shark fin soup etc. for which they have either no jurisdiction or no jolt!
  They sure pick their “ethical charitable choices” accordingly, don’t you say?

• 38 waltyss // Oct 11, 2012 at 6:04 pm

  @TerryM:; whatever!

• 39 Voony // Oct 11, 2012 at 9:12 pm

  Ned@35 rants:
  When a concert starts at 8-9 PM and ends at 11-12PM in the middle of a work week you don’t feel like going back to Surrey, Coquitlam, White Rock by transit, with a bunch of 10-12 years old kids… MB, considering that you just spent a few hundreds of dollars to see Madonna, Justin or whomever.

  And why that Ned?

  Notice: I don’t see much parking space around the Metroplitan Opera, the Carnegie hall, the Scala, the Garnier opera…

  Why the Madonna fans can’t take transit when it is the staple of many opera goers around the world?

• 40 Glissando Remmy // Oct 11, 2012 at 11:28 pm

  Voony #39
  Best example of an ignoramus.
  “Why the Madonna fans can’t take transit when it is the staple of many opera goers around the world?”
  Can you even differentiate between Madonna’s pop and Opera?
  Same goes for the crowds attending.
  Then, you compare a mainly sport arena, used for music during a sport strike and a number of Opera edifices.
  You want something to compare with? Better look at San Siro. Oh, that’s a stadium. In Milano.
  Now, look around that and tell me what you see…
  My point exactly!

• 41 waltyss // Oct 12, 2012 at 12:01 am

  Trust Glissy the hasheater to suggestthat Voony doesn’t know the difference between Opera and Madonna. The real point is that Madonna fans or Bieb fans are more likely to take public transit than are Opera fans who are a few blocks away having mostly arrived by car.
  The point is if either wants to come downtown to a concert or an opera and doesn’t want to take public transit (in the case of the arenas which is right next door and in the case of the opera a few blocks away), that is their right. But I fail to see why we should make it easier for them to come by car. In taking transit, they may actually find that they can get home sooner.

• 42 MB // Oct 12, 2012 at 10:03 am

  @ Ned 35:

  Now, let me lay it down for you too, you have BC Place and Rogers Arena one next to each other… You DO NOT fill this arenas with people from Vancouver MB! You just don’t. You don’t have the numbers for that. They come from all over the mainland… by car, [...]

  Ned, the Engineering Dept. placed car counters on the viaducts over several periods including at rush hour and event peaks and have the numbers to prove they are underused.

  This dovetails with the stats collected by Engineering and Planning noting a remarkable drop in overall traffic to /from the downtown penninsula in the past 10 years. This despite a near doubling in population.

  Your suburban hordes evidence is anecdotal at best and based solely on the occasional peak.

  … you don’t feel like going back to Surrey, Coquitlam, White Rock by transit, with a bunch of 10-12 years old kids… MB, considering that you just spent a few hundreds of dollars to see Madonna, Justin or whomever.
  

  You are contradicting yourself while complaining about the World Class traffic jams around the stadiums while actually calling attention to the high peak use of transit, notably SkyTrain and the Canada Line.

  Apparently you missed the Olympics.

  But if you really are concerned about the presence of two stadiums in downtown Vancouver, then I’d back any suggestion you make that call on Surrey or Coquitlam to build one or two biggies in the burbs to take the pressure off Vancouver, which pays a heavy price in policing costs and damage every time there’s a riot. Let the suburbs take the Granville vomitorium while they’re at it.

  BTW, I wouldn’t spend $100 on Madonna or Justin even if I was 18 and had access to a suburban beemer. At that age I was a huge fan of Hendrix, Clapton and Miles Davis. Today I’d drop 100 on Pat Metheny or the VSO.

• 43 MB // Oct 12, 2012 at 10:05 am

  Your suburban hordes all arriving by car evidence is anecdotal at best and based solely on the occasional peak.

• 44 MB // Oct 12, 2012 at 10:28 am

  @ Roger 43

  Well, I’m on the fence about the PO building because it does present a great opportunity for adaptive reuse, in my view.

  So consider me pushed off the fence about the architecture, but not about redesigning the exisiting structure. It is a mid-rise block building enclosing a very attractive volume of space, and there aren’t many of those in the towered-up downtown any more.

  A major art museum is at the the top of the heap, and the building could undergo a significant transformation into something better and contribute to regional culture and the street in a big way.

  I’d like see VAG take over 2/3 of the space and remove 1/3 of the volume, mostly on Georgia to create a wonderful town square filled with exciting stuff (a huge crashing fountain comes to mind, but so does sculpture at special night lighting in an urban garden or plaza), but also to slice away at the other three sides to better articulate the pedestrian experience at street level.

  The shape of the existing enclosed space seems to lend itself to three or four huge above ground floorplates that can be divided into separate galleries with conjoined interior circulation. A block building like this could also be bored out in the centre affording an interior courtyard open to the sky, or a solarium, or at least an oculus admitting light into the core but not the galleries where environmental control is paramount.

  And if there is a basement in the existing building, it would be massive, even with only one or two levels, and would lend itself well to storage, shops and rehabilitation labs.

  You seem to be investing a lot of energy knocking the existing PO building — not that it doesn’t fail on so many levels — but please tell us what you’d have there as an alternative. The way it’s going we’re bound to get yet more 30-storey curtain wall mediocrity right up to the lot line.

  What are your ideas for this locus, Roger?

• 45 Roger Kemble // Oct 12, 2012 at 11:25 am

  “What are your ideas for this locus, Roger?”

  Well, MB @ #44, if VAG is set on moving and a culture precinct is in the long-range plans then it must be done right!

  I still prefer VAG stays were it is especially with the city getting serious about closing off Robson. But the mayor has spoken!

  There are several plazas along that end of Georgia, built over the years, without a cultural precinct in mind. If they are to have meaning, as a precinct, they must be coalesced into a cohesive form, (i.e. down grade Georgia by closing off the viaduct), make it into a pedestrian part of the plazas with sculpture gardens etc.

  Make no apologies for inconveniencing auto traffic. It has had the run of the city for far too long: now its culture’s turn!

  As for Justin and Madonna, they have a large foot print, let them eat cake!

  I mean, if the city is serious about culture be bold!

  I cannot thinq of another city that has an exclusive cultural precinct. Centro Historico, DF comes close, but that evolved from when Cuauhtémoc defeated (small pox got them in the end) Cortez six hundred years ago.

  As for the old post office, it is a badly designed monstruo and it looks like one of those is about to be dumped on the old Eatons site already. One is enough!

• 46 MB // Oct 12, 2012 at 12:34 pm

  Roger, thanks for your refreshingly bold ideas.

  Closing Georgia Street — that would set a precedence in radically increasing livability. It would also blow away some Old School politicos and bureacrats.

  That’s dangerous. Like eating a burrito before sex.

• 47 Ned // Oct 12, 2012 at 2:05 pm

  MB #42
  “BTW, I wouldn’t spend $100 on Madonna or Justin even if I was 18 and had access to a suburban beemer. At that age I was a huge fan of Hendrix, Clapton and Miles Davis. Today I’d drop 100 on Pat Metheny or the VSO.”
  This is something that I can openly say, we can both agree on!

• 48 Roger Kemble // Oct 12, 2012 at 3:08 pm

  “Like eating a burrito before sex.”

  MB @ # 46. Ummmmm, I must try it!

• 49 Everyman // Oct 13, 2012 at 9:07 am

  @Roger Kemble- What, exactly, is “badly designed” about the post office?

  No, it’s not the Marine Building. However that is an irrelevant comparison given the distance in time and purpose between the two. The more apt comparison is to similar lowrise mid-century buildings, or to current big box construction. In that case it shines.

  Moving the VAG to the post office, saves a historic building, offers the gallery a fantastic floorplate and space perfectly suited to a gallery and saves the taxpayers a huge amount of money. (Note: if you think Bartels and Audain are going to be able to wring hundreds of millions out of private donors in Vancouver, you’re dreaming)

• 50 Mira // Oct 13, 2012 at 10:42 am

  I like the building.
  It’s not exactly “pretty”, but it’s unique, stands out, clean cut architecture and very functional. VAG should be happy to get it as it suits their purpose, though they should NOT move from that location IMO. That’s my opinion on this.

• 51 Roger Kemble // Oct 13, 2012 at 12:11 pm

  VAG has been exploring, for the last two years, the possibilities, costs and siting, of a new (to meet its explicit requirements) building on Larwell Park.

  So to assume VAG will even consider that dated monstrosity is very presumptive. Trust me I lived with that building since its inception: the general conclusion has always been jeeezus, that’s an ugly mudder phuccer.

  You buck the grain . . .

  To convert from an out dated provincial mail sorting depot to an art gallery will be incredibly expensive.

  I have done a few conversions, although none this extensive, and always came away, nodding my head, this could have been less expensive to start from scratch and the rationalized reno ultimately doesn’t meet the specs anyway.

  If VAG is to make a significant contribution to a Vancouver Cultural Precinct, if Vancouver is to be a player in the art world then it will have to be in more than a half baked conversion job: surely is not the building itself a very significant part of the collection . . .

  My immediate reaction Everyman @ #49 is, if you have to ask, you’ll never know!

• 52 brilliant // Oct 13, 2012 at 2:33 pm

  @Roger Kemble 51-read todays G&M: Audain is quietly admitting defeat on the field at Larwill and fleeing with his art collection to Whistler. Bartels is engaged in a messy poo-flinging fest with Bob Rennie. That $300 mil Larwill Park thing ain’t gonna happen.

• 53 Roger Kemble // Oct 13, 2012 at 3:35 pm

  brilliant @ #52

  “That $300 mil Larwill Park thing ain’t gonna happen.”

  Then VAG had best stay were is, Michael take his Diego to Whistler, let the local architectural butchers do what they will with the OPO and, the cultural precinct wait for better times . . . on la di da . . .

• 54 Glissando Remmy // Oct 13, 2012 at 7:54 pm

  Thought of The Day

  “My name is Bond. VAG-abond…this should be VAG-s logo, slogan, letterhead…”

  And this is how I started my comment on Vancouver Art Gallery latest escapade back in Feb. 2nd of 2011, here #2:

  http://francesbula.com/uncategorized/while-council-prepares-to-give-vancouver-art-gallery-a-shot-at-empty-block-potshots-exchange/

  Roger was there, Mezzanine was there, Bill McCreery was there, Higgins was there, F. H. Leghorn was there, MB was there… Deja, Deja Vu, Deja Entendu Anyone?

  We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

  PS.
  My twopence.
  VAG stays at Robson.
  We, Vancouverites, keep the money.
  We use the money to start a FREE Citywide Program teaching kids how to paint, sculpt, draw, invent, tinker, build model ships and planes that sail and fly, learn about textiles, master a musical instrument, other than the pathetic recorder… you know, the good times. $400 Million could buy lots of art and music supplies don’t you think?

  If on the other hand you want to keep the Postal Office Building (my preference) and want a little more enhancement, to tame the critics than bring one of the two in town…

  Norman Foster (1) or Jean Nouvel (2), both versed in retrofitting old anchor buildings:

  1. Great Court of the British Museum
  wwwDOTfosterandpartnersDOTcom/projects/0828/defaultDOTaspx

  2.Renovation of the Lyon Opera House
  wwwDOTarchitectureDOTaboutDOTcom/od/findphotos/ig/Jean-Nouvel/Lyon-Opera-RenovationDOThtm

  All it needs is a… new roof and a little bit of genius, my dearest!
  Sorry for the “DOT” thingy but Frances blog does not allow more than ONE link per comment without sending it to the Moderation Purgatory…

• 55 waltyss // Oct 14, 2012 at 12:25 am

  ;@MB #44: If you want to turn over 2/3 of it to the VAG, don’t you need some world class art to put into it. And while it would allow them to attract bigger shows, their permanent collection is not really up to it.
  On the other hand, while no real beauty, the old PO is probably better than what they will replace it with.

• 56 Glissando Remmy // Oct 14, 2012 at 2:18 pm

  Afterthought of The Day

  “Now that I’m thinking about it, in regards to the Canada Post building eventual retrofit, Norman Foster Partners are ahead Jean Nouvel, 2 to 1…”

  Following my #54 Post-Scriptum I’d like to add this:

  http://www.fosterandpartners.com/projects/0686/default.aspx

  FWIW, ’cause you all know by now…

  We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

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