@Tiktaalik // Jul 19, 2013 at 1:58 pm #1

…By the way I sincerely hope the developer has a long term plan for managing those rooftop trees, because it is not trivial at all to keep those in good health.
The colours of the building are also a jumble of random thoughts. There’s just no overall direction in the design of this building

Just like describing the yuppies Woodwards 2 building.

Its fascinating how many civic issue stories involve Vision foisting developments on neighbourhoods that have told them repeatedly they don’t want them.

I think a large part of it has to do with the fact that Vancouver has pretty much almost run out of brownfield land and from this point forward development will have to be in the thick of established neighbourhoods.

Perhaps the last big development that was able to sail through the development process on brownfield land was the bizarrely tall 25 story Opsal Tower at 2nd and Quebec. Approved before anyone really lived in SE False Creek.

As a 25+ year resident of Mt Pleasant the Rize looks exactly like that other monstrosity at Kingsway and Knight, King Edward Village.

Media coverage here:

http://wp.me/p2FnNe-8y

The Rize has nothing to do with a ‘village’. Obviously, obviously it lacks village scale. And it lacks the moxie, culture, and urbanity of places like Greenwich Village, NYC.

Notwithstanding, the architect for the Rize insisted on making “village” references in his presentation to the Mount Pleasant Plan Implementation Committee (MPIC) leaving the impression with this observer that he was not telling the truth.

The changes made to the project as a result of the public hearing one year ago all point in the same direction. The most profitable part of the project—the ‘luxury’ residential—increases by 40% taking over the space from the only part of the project that might have had something to contribute to the neighbourhood—the food co-op space.

The problem with the Rize comes in two sizes.

First, its scale and massing don’t fit the context. The Rize is 183% larger than permitted by the freshly minted Mount Pleasant Plan. Mayor and Council have to make a decision here: Are they going to lie to the community, or are they going to follow their own plan??

The second problem is that the urbanism is non-existent. Literally, the project sucks all the life off the streets—including historic and just-33-foot-wide Watson Street—giving nothing in return.

There is a long wrap of storefronts on narrow sidewalks. However, that is hardly enough for a site that is being granted almost twice the amount of density allowed by the community plan.

The project that was dubbed “A Hippo in a Bathtub” is being described as four or five buildings.

This is also a lie. The Rize is really just ONE huge bulk taking up the entire site.

Were it three, four or five buildings it might open up some public space on the ground plane creating a space to discover, a nook or urban cranny where a French Restaurant might locate; a local café; an interesting bookstore; a vintage dress shop; or a family day care.

For the private use of the residents there is an open space at Level 5—or so—far enough from the (dirty) street level below.

All the streets will be blighted by this project (and made dirtier, meaner, less defensible). The Rize is pilling on to what is already an untenable and sad excuse for neighbourhood urbanism. If given approval, the project will overpower Watson Street, locating access to four levels of underground parking and all commercial loading there. Watson is treated as a throw-away alley, rather than the historic landscape it truly represents. The Rize will shadow Broadway from the south for most of the day, all year long. The massing on Broadway is—well—massive. The 22 storey slab parallels 10th Avenue on the north side. Its shadows don’t fall on the bikeway, but the sheer bulk of its size will make standing on the street feel like one is standing in a nasty misbegotten lane rather than a public street. Even Kingsway is treated as left over urban space. The Rize has nothing to contribute except a frontage of characterless retail storefronts.

That’s where it lies. Old paradigm planning is riding high over Mount Pleasant. Agile inventive design is nowhere to be seen. Nothing green or sustainable here.

Even at LEED gold the sheer scale of this project puts passive solar design beyond its reach. Thus, reminding us once more why small is beautiful in high-density urbanism.

The social functioning of the neighbourhood gets the same treatment. No public space is being created by this monstrosity. No lane moves through this property offering a short cut, a glimpse of something beckoning and mysterious, an invitation to explore and discover a new space in the neighbourhood. No human-scale urbanism is being reintroduced to compliment the outstanding collection of 1908-1915 era buildings on its periphery.

That era is the golden age of urbanism in our city. A time when the street car service surged and the likes of the Europe and Sylvia sHotel, the Lee, Wynonah, Ashnola, Quebec Manor, Manhattan Apartments and all manner of human-scale buildings too numerous to list here sprouted up in key locations across our city.

We welcome investment to our neighbourhood. However, we ask that it take note of its surroundings. If this is off-shore capital landing in our community, then we stand firm on the principle that it partake in celebrating the traditions of this place.

When will we realize Vancouver is not Hong Kong, and no one really living here has any interest in it being so?

Rize Development Director Chris Vollan is blatantly misrepresenting the truth to the public AND Council when he describes the fit between this tower and the Community Plan. It fact, it directly contravenes it.

Mount Pleasant Community Plan Section 5.1 provides guidance for the development of three “Large Sites” in the community, the only three that were contemplated for rezoning. For both of the other two sites, Kingsgate Mall and IGA, the final language in the Plan reads: “Pursue additional density and height beyond that permitted under the current C-3A zoning”

This same language was included in earlier drafts of the Plan for the Rize site, BUT THIS LANGUAGE WAS REMOVED BY PLANNING AT THE INSISTENCE OF THE COMMUNITY. For the Rize site, the smallest of the three, the Council-approved text instead reads: “Support the design of an ‘iconic’ (landmark) building when granting permission for higher buildings.”

Additional density above the already high discretionary FSR of 3.0 was explicitly and categorically ruled out for this site, by order of Council in November 2010. The Rize would be built to an FSR of 5.5.

What’s not to understand? The MPCP is online here: http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/MP-community-plan.pdf . This project does not in any way meet the tests in this plan for this site. If there are any questions about what an “iconic” building might look like, here is a start: http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-iconic-buildings.php?wpst=1 or http://blog.buzzbuzzhome.com/2013/07/iconic-buildings-under-construction.html .

Living thirty years in a neighbourhood does not qualify anyone to determine it’s future. Indeed like an in gown toenail sooner than later it be becomes a pain.

I do apologize for my colleagues in the architectural and planning professions. I regret they chose to pander to, rather than guide, the development industry. We all lose!

Mount Pleasant has a 2011 population of 26,000, as of VanCity’s account, with a probably voting pop of 20,000+/-. Simply put, for the sake of the neighbourhoods the city cannot allow a vociferous few, at most a dozen, to laud it over all others!

At a 4% population growth rate, and a growing inventory of unoccupied over-priced dwellings, the city cannot afford all this numerical hyperbole!

I congratulate the planners, with one exception, for their efforts to plan for tomorrow’s city over the interference of a very few loquacious self-appointed experts.

That exception is Marpole’s Marine Gateway: an unfortunate aberration that has completely eclipsed the thriving neighbourhood center at Granville and 75th.

Despite a vigilant negbourhood it collapsed: hysteria leftover from the, now forgotten but for its lingering (overhanging debt etc.) problems, Olympics. The Canada Line was an over exuberant mistake (land-lift elevating modest family bungalows into the multi-million dollar stratosphere) to accommodate a two week extravaganza that will haunt the city for decades.

So now the mantra is, Density is not the only issue. Right! “Try Laying Rize on its side and squeeze all its accommodation and amenities on that small site and prove to yourselves the fallaciousness of that argument.

Another absurdity, but it persists.

The last video I saw, made by protesters at home, of the lead protester, papoose (Bullshit, he doesn’t have a papoose!) held close-to-breast proving that a large semi could not negotiate Watson Street. Cyclists from all over town were dragooned into service.

Needless to say, the semi easily negotiated Watson!

Transportation oriented development is close behind but for the time being Vancouver is emerging from a millennium of indiscriminate sprawl, thus until the city matures, we must suffer it: close proximity of living/amenities/jobs is still a remote planning maxim but one well worth pursuing.

For a mature approach, I do not expect the overly intense activists to come out of their redoubts but for the active community planners and one or two interested citizens here is a healthy compendium for development of Vancouver’s identified neighbourhoods.

No tired towers, density are barren arguments unworthy of a sophisticated populace in the twenty-first century. . .

http://members.shaw.ca/aguaflor/The.Urban.Village.html

. . . indeed looking at the city’s approach to Grandview Woodlands and Mount Pleasant planners, despite a small minority agitating, are on the right track!

Identify heritage neighbourhoods, provide them with ambulatory amenity centers, entertainment, education, libraries, groceries, cafés walking gardens between building. If that requires towers in the centers for the sake of proximity, so be it!

Notwithstanding my comment, re my colleagues above, as for few planners on this case: just continue doing what you are doing. You are way from perfect but you’re on the right track!

Let it constantly be said, what is more important, getting there or being there?

hey rk, we already have all that in gw, and it is by no means a handful of people who are opposed.perhaps you’d like the 10,000 people the city wants to cram here with no amenities or park space in the budget. (sans those provided by developers because they and the city KNOW planning based on profit has a destructive quality on neighborhoods built by people) that’s slightly less than the entire population of parksville (in terms of the last sentence I’m sure you can see the irony in this example) although my neighborhood is smaller than your city. to accommodate these new arrivals, Roger, a significant portion of the city that, let’s just say you had a hand in designing, will be demolished, and what is built will dwarf the surrounding area with no seeming regard for where it is or what surrounds it. still excited? the last part of this scenario is a stretch for you, but give it a whirl.. you’ll have to imagine you use up all your money every month on living expenses currently but you’ve always lived that way and it doesn’t bother you. except now it appears that the cheap rentals you call home are going to be taken down and replaced with something twice the cost.. (keeping in mind the city of Vancouver’s “what’s affordable to you?” pdf explains that they want to increase supply of lower-moderate income homes, or for residents with 21,000-86,500/yr incomes.. say what?) would you be excited by this? what do you do?

Mt. Pleasant residents would have been happy to see density and form comparable with the Lee Block

Everyman 10

Just, just missed it, Everyman… Lee Building is 90-feet high and the MTP design guidelines permit 70-feet on the Rize site.

Rezoning was supposed to allow more height, but NOT more density. That is set at the Rize site as 3.0 FSR. Many believe this constitutes sufficient grounds for a court challenge. That one is out of my field of expertise.

Last week the MPIC as a group applauded the results of the self-directed charrette workshop that was held 22 june. That workshop tested keeping new development to 4-storeys or less.

The results? OK, the preliminary results?

We can double the neighbourhood population, revitalize the streets, and create the space to implement BRT on a half-mile grid without building higher than 4-storeys.

Yep. There’s a funding formula included with that calculation. But it doesn’t allow for the thousands of planning hours spent setting up and processing these ridiculous (and possibly illegal) re-zonings.

How much density is that? 300% of the target for year 2040 in the Regional Growth Strategy!!

So, we’ve been using Fabula to promote row houses with success. Now, we are after stopping towers from escaping the downtown (where they are a good fit) into the neighbourhoods (where they don’t belong).

We now have these findings from the neighbourhoods to guide a wholly different approach to planning in our city:

(1) None of the neighbourhoods want towers: Not Mount Pleasant, Granview-Woodland or the Eastside. This point is now irrefutably established.

(2) We don’t need towers! We can build 3x the density needed for RGS 2040 with product 4-storeys high or less.

(3) Tower living is still available downtown where the transit, services, entertainment, job-space, No. 3 greatest park in the world, etc. are all within easy walking distance.

Point four might be “getting Mayor and Council to Listen”. That one may need to wait till November next year.

Tic, tic, tic…

Hear the sound of the consensus growing wider while our political leaders appear to be fitting themselves out with Roman togas and signing up for fiddling lessons.

Since it seems to violate the rules here to post a view without sarcasm or insult, let me note an element of the Rize presentation that irritated me – the suggestion that their design was informed by Italian hilltop villages. I could not begin to enunciate all the ways Rize is unlike an Italian hilltop village, so let’s just note the absence of a steep, dramatic hill in this neighbourhood.

Lewis @ 8

“For the private use of the residents there is an open space at Level 5—or so—far enough from the (dirty) street level below.”

I suppose that level 5 would correspond to the roof top of the four storey walk-up. I suppose also that once above 5 floors the height of a building does not really matter as far as the occupants are concerned, since they are all above the dirty street below. Aside from prejudicial beliefs, the height of a building is only limited by weight and by the space required by elevators to move folks to the upper floors. There is no other good reason to stop going up.

Randy @ 21
“Places all over the world” is not the same as the crossroads site under discussion. Imagineering is not the same as a project proposal. There is a mountain of evidence in the City of Vancouver illustrating that building height has nothing to do with the quality of the public realm. Our city is a reflection of our particular cultural values. We are not far away places.

Hi Rand,

Looks like we got one of those folks who demands proof, but is unwilling or unable to provide any to back his own opinions.

We are all agreed that towers are a viable product in the building industry. So is ground (street) oriented construction. I don’t tire of saying that Downtown is Vancouver’s tower district.

However, I see a reason for building different kinds of neighbourhoods for different kinds of places.

As the City’s intention to foist towers on all the neighbourhoods becomes transparent, insisting that it is only impacting 5% of the land, the neighbours are rising to resist this kind of one-size-fits-all-planning.

To give people a sense of what is possible—after all, we only made the row house legal again one year ago, thus Vancouver lacks world-class human-scale high-density neighbourhood models—one of the methods involves talking about, and going to see, other successful urban places.

However, some will balk at that too. A change in direction requires that people be willing to keep an open mind around the options. Then, it requires testing perception against fact.

We have shown that it is possible to achieve equivalent densities to tower with 4-storey product. We have also shown that we can double the population in the city—exceeding growth targets for 2040 by three or four times—by simply building the street oriented product on our arterials. As part of that intensification we can revitalize the streets, and implement BRT (trolley rapid transit, rail or streetcar).

The transit choices are green-house-gas-zero. If we can succeed in converting commuter trips from cars to BRT then we will not only rebuild our arterials, return affordability to housing, and green our neighbourhoods, but we will also significantly reduce air pollution.

That’s a pretty good package. While the planners are looking to engage as little of the neighbourhood as possible (as little as 5% in Mount Pleasant), our approach looks at it the other way around. We would like to engage as much of the neighbourhood as possible.

We are trying to impact every front door with fast and efficient transit just a 5 minute walking distance away. We are trying to convert over-capacity in traffic lanes into urban rooms and public spaces. We are trying to make it so that the air is cleaner where we live.

By choosing the human-scale product over the giga-scale tower, we are diversifying the economy. Building 400 units in 100 different job sites, rather than 400 units in just one place. We agree with the city that rezoning land encourages speculation in real estate. We hope that by stopping the practice of rezoning neighbourhood land to tower densities we will reverse the trend and return to housing affordability.

There will always be a some who refuse to come along. Some for whom the only facts that work are the facts that they like.

Lee Block is a bit of a throw back to another age. From memory, if it is 9 stories high, then it is 9 FSR (7 stories, 7 FSR; 11 storeys, 11 FSR; etc.).

However, built in 1912 it pre-dates the practice of zoning, and one could very well argue that it is a trigger for it.

There was a building built in NYC in the financial district (Lee-like, but much much bigger) that got that city to pioneer the practice of zoning.

In case you missed it, I wrote about it here:

http://wp.me/p1mj4z-tp

So the Lee is VERY English (in spite of having been built by an Asian-Canadian who owned and operated a grocery store just around the corner on Main Street). The Lee is “the exception that proves the rule”.

Density is not the only point to note in this remarkable structure. The arcade that fronts Broadway (I am told) is not original. It dates to the late 1920s when the north side of Broadway was pushed back 33 feet to create a wider avenue.

Fronting a street with over 40,000 trips per day, and with the B-Line opening its hydraulic piston driven doors into the space, the arcade is rather inhospitable. However, we used it as a desirable ‘type’ during the Mount Pleasant Plan Implementation Committee’s self-directed Charrette Workshop. We felt it was the appropriate way to front a public room or urban space.

Turning back to the Rize, if the ‘plaza’ were on the ground, the a Lee-like arcade could front it on one or more sides. We showed that scheme to close the Public Hearing.

But that’s not all about the Lee. It is a remarkable coincidence how much the Lee resembles a building that was completed a year later—the Sylvia Hotel on English Bay. Different architects on title… but there is a real mystery to solve here.

Finally, there is the fact that the Sylvia and the Wynonah Apartments (Main and 11th were designed by the same Seattle architect.

Which is all to say that the Lee belongs to Mount Pleasant, the only neighbourhood in Vancouver to grow an identity apart from the downtown.

Mount Pleasant has its own authentic character and story to tell. I think we should listen to it.

Height of the Lee Building is 81-feet to the top of the cornice—approximately—as best we can determine from City documents.

There is a two-storey elevator penthouse (one of the very early ones in our city) that rises above that. However, for the purposes of urban design—the top of the cornice is the correct datum.

Thanks for pointing out the slip of the pen, John…
Blogging comes with its own set of risks.

My sincere apology to the family.

I visited the family website celebrating the 100th anniversary of the building last year. There is a family portrait and plenty of other information on the web page. Interestingly enough there is a photo of the Lee Building from 1927 before the arcade was put in place. Large canvass awnings shade the south facing windows at sidewalk level:

http://www.tracyforsyth.com/lee_building.html

Your research, John, surprises me with the late date for the Lee Building’s Arcade (1953). The widening of Broadway was contemplated in the Bartholomew Report (1927-1929).

I would have expected that the widening of Broadway might have taken place in the 1930s the date I have for the construction of the Lougheed Highway.

I’d be very interested to know what happened to the proposed food co-op which the Rize people were promising/had already been in talks with local business owners– it’s just vanished from the discussion. It was part of their zoning change application, and now it’s gone by the wayside?

What Everyman and others admire on Main Street is a quality about Mount Pleasant that has always captivated me for years.

The Lee, the Sylvia Hotel on English Bay, the Wynnonah (SW corner of Main & 11th) and the old Royal Bank building (SW corner of 8th & Main) share something in common. In the case of the latter two—I’m told—an architect from Seattle designed both. However, that doesn’t explain the parallels to the Lee, or the vision that the Seattle architect was following.

The two buildings on the SW corner of 10th and Main are also worthy of note (it is easier to keep track of the blocks if we remember that Broadway was originally 9th Avenue, the name being changed in the period when these buildings went up with the intention of appealing to investment ‘South of the Border’). The three storey structure on the corner is rusticated, and its proportions and fenestration belongs to the era just past—the Victorians. The row houses that front 10th just around the corner, on the other hand, are all about the modernism to come. I am told that in this case they are built of reinforced concrete spanning the chasm (below ground) of Brewery Creek.

About the Sylvia we can be very clear: It is too damn tall for neighbourhood urbanism. The height of neighbourhood buildings should be set in proportion to the fronting space. Since the Sylvia faces the beach, clearly the space runs to the horizon and any height would be possible in theory. However, in these cases, the view of the sky and the ocean view from properties that do not enjoy and edge condition should be taken into account, and the height of the Sylvia should be restricted to not more than three storeys (perhaps with a recessed penthouse).

The same holds for the Lee’s height. However, the Lee presents something much more important. It shows us plainly (because it is not covered in ivy like the Sylvia) an idea about the balance between the vernacular and classical urbanism. We are told that the top and the base of the Lee are clad in terra cotta tiles.

Terra cotta tiles are used in all the buildings cited, except for the two at 10th & Main. These buildings employ the terra cotta to express classical urbanism. However, in the Lee and the Sylvia, the classical treatment is interrupted on the middle floors. In the Old Royal Bank and the Wynnonah—each less than 3 stories high—the tiles rise from base to top uninterrupted.

The question arises about the proportion of classical and vernacular expression in the neighbourhoods as these resume their march to build the west coast urbanism. The Lee and the Sylvia appear to get it right: there is more of the vernacular stuff (exposed brick with plain square windows) than the classical (clad construction with arches and columns).

The Lee presents another remarkable quality elevating it to the rank of a monumental expression on its site—the arcade fronting Broadway. Yes, that infernal space that is polluted and assaulted by deafening noise every time the 99-B-Line pulls up and releases all its pneumatic pistons at once to get the doors open and shut.

We tested at the MPIC Charrette Workshop the notion that the arcade is the Lee arcade is the right idea in the wrong place. That arcades like the Lee’s should front public open spaces in key sites in Mount Pleasant.

We spent less time considering whether or not Broadway has gotten out of hand, and should be reined in with a change of design in the street section. The workshop did look at a concept for planting two rows of trees on either side of a double lane for transit in the middle of a R.O.W. Two lanes of traffic were shown on either side of the transit “pinching” automobile capacity. (Say no more.)

I referenced above the picture of the Lee before Broadway was widened (1953, thanks John A.). The photo shows that the columns are either original or very close to the original (hard to tell in the photo; not clear whether the original terra cotta tile wrapped the entire column or was just used as facing). Therefore, all that really changed with the Lee was that the storefronts were recessed into the mass of the building.

I may attempt a more cogent summary at http://sunnmountpleasant.wordpress.com on a later date. For the moment, this is where the matter rests for me:

There was a ‘downtown’ district in Mount Pleasant to rival the two established centres at New Westminster and the CPRs downtown (Mount Pleasant was situated on the road that linked the other two). Its one attempt to soar beyond the limits of human scale (the Lee) should be left unrivalled. The quintessential nature of the Mount Pleasant urbanism is its human scale.
Mount Pleasant urbanism comes complete with a classical expression. As we have pointed out in the Janes Walks of the past two years, the classical expression was balanced by a vernacular of brick buildings and wood cottages.
The brick vernacular is everywhere in apartment houses and commercial construction. But perhaps nowhere better expressed that on the NE corner of Quebec & 7th at Quebec Manor; and the SW corner of Quebec & 2nd at the Campbell Warehouse.
All these constructions pre-date the introduction of urban codes (NYC 1915; Vancouver 1927-29). Thus, they are not without elements that must not be replicated today.
However, with that caveat in mind, new construction in Mount Pleasant should be directed to extend the local tradition.
It should be build in proportions not exceeding ⅓ of the width of the fronting public space or street; and at an average height of 3 storeys. Density on any site should not exceed 2.0 FSR with additional density granted for social housing (0.5 FSR) and below grade big-box retail (0.5 FSR).
It should build in the local vernacular vocabulary, reserving classical expression for those special sites and places that speak to community values and values of place.

The first thing to remember when talking about the development of Vancouver is that there was a major economic depression in 1913 that hit the city hard and stopped pretty much all commercial construction. This accounts for the isolated condition of the Sylvia and the Lee building. If the building boom had continued then these buildings wouldn’t be such isolated examples.

The Wenonah, Belvedere and other apartments are three storey for the simple reason that they are timber frame structures with a masonary exterior – much cheaper to build than a concrete frame needed for a larger building.

There is no ‘local vernacular’, the Wenonah, Belvedere, Sylvia, Lee and even the Campbell building all draw from the same neo-classical language that was popular across North America in this period. Some employ terra cotta as decoration while others like Quebec Manor use galvanized steel. And many use a combination of galvanized steel and terra cotta – check the Wenonah closely, you will see terra cotta store fronts, window sills and the freize set in the brick below the galvanized steel cornice. Only the Campbell’s classism is expressed all in brick.

FYI: The Lee building’s columns along Broadway were rendered in stucco as part of an 1980s facade improvement program to replicate the original look of the terra cotta which was removed during earlier renovations.

@ John Atkin

As I ‘fessed up to Bruce MacDonald not too long ago, I am very interested in the history of Vancouver urbanism, little less so with the history of the architectural pieces themselves, and hold only a passing curiosity for the characters and the people that graced them.

These are both my own personal frailties publicly displayed, and an open hand to the historians like yourself to carry on with your fine work that enlivens our understanding of our past and therefore ourselves.

I have heard another account of when the “depression” hit the area, if memory serves confirming a date late in 1913. War broke out in Europe in 1914 and the Panama Canal began operations in earnest (under U.S. control) the following year.

However, I don’t agree with the view that this accounts for the Lee, the Sylvia and others, standing as isolated examples. Had they represented a bonafide urbanism, then one would have expected construction to continue where it had left off.

But such would not be the case.

Rather, the urbanism went another way leaving these structures exposed as caught up in a hubris of a prior age, riding the euphoria of the steel cable and the steel truss that had made hi-rise possible for the first time after the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC in the 1890s.

When building activity resumed in earnest in the post WWII era of the 1950s, the automobile was king and suburban sprawl was the (sub)urban flavour of the age. The emptying out of the urban neighbourhoods was on (including Chinatown and the East End) and we were saddled with the conditions that haunt us to this day. A Brave New World had dawned and nothing was going to put the Genie back in the bottle again.

Fast forward 100 years to this day, John, and here we are in 2013 fighting the Rize from committing the very same mistake all over again!

Except now the roles have been reversed. We are not on the cusp of the emptying of the urban neighbourhoods. Rather, we are seeing their renaissance as can be witnessed everyday at Mount Pleasant Elementary, for example. Or, in the growing bustle of the café scene at Broadway and Main late into the evenings.

However, today the threat of the Behemoths is now very much a threat issued in reverse. We are no longer assaulted by the prospect of too little development pressure, or the prospect of 100 years and more of these isolated carcasses standing out of keeping with everything else around them. Today we face the threat of new transgressions into the human-scale urbanism messing up the experience of place in the newly re-awakening historic neighbourhoods. Once more the sought after places for families to locate and prosper, we are once again thrust back on the defensive trying to uphold values of community and values of place. History repeats itself as we stand against seemingly insurmountable odds pressed upon us by the stampeding forces of industry chasing their blind and unbridled ambition and profit motive all else be damned.

The Wenonah, Belvedere and other apartments are three storey for the simple reason that they are timber frame structures with a masonary exterior – much cheaper to build than a concrete frame needed for a larger building.

No argument. However, as of 2009 it is possible to build 6 storeys in timber frame structures with a masonry exterior (optional) which are still much cheaper to build than a concrete frame needed for the Rize tower (and its five levels of underground parking and loading space).

However, the notion of the vernacular and the classical extends much further than the applied styles of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The classical and vernacular building side by side to create a lasting monument of the places we inhabit represent the very foundation of western urbanism going back to its roots in the time of the Romans and the Greeks. Periods that were rediscovered in the European Renaissance just before the moment of the colonialization of the Americas.

The vernacular was the style to be used by the everyday buildings—the Wenonah, Belvedere, Sylvia, Lee, Ivanhoe, Campbell, Opsal Steel, Salt Buildings, etc. The classical style was meant to be used sparingly in buildings of a public purpose.

That is why Postal Station C (at Main and 15th) is such an important fabric for Mount Pleasant. It is in its silhouette and its there-storey massing a remarkable example of the classical monument built from locally available materials and methods.

Whether the applied decoration on vernacular structures is in galvanized steel, terracotta tile, or brick is really besides the point in understanding the distinction between the use of vernacular (tectonic & private) and classical (symbolic & public) means of expression in the tradition of western urbanism.

The point that I think we are both trying to express is that there was something lost in the centuries leading up to the settlement of the west by Europeans. Something in their own heritage and compass had gone askew in the frenzy unloosened by the process of break-neck paced industrialization.

What I find so satisfying about our discussion is that we are able to shed light on aspects of it together. Each bringing different points of view owing to our different angles of approach to the same subject matter.

Wonderful notes about the Lee Arcade renovations. So much more to explore on these foundational city blocks in the community of Mount Pleasant. A place that gives me everyday more reason to believe that it was being planned as a centre apart from Vancouver’s downtown on the opposite side of False Creek.

As urbanism, the Lee Arcade shares every so briefly—and in our day and age on a blighted site—some of the same qualities observed by the great English architect Christopher Wren about the colonnades surrounding Piazza San Marco in Venezia. For him, there was no correct length of a colonnade surrounding a public square. The important function or service was simply to mark the edge of the space continuously no mater its proportions.

To my eyes the classical colonnade on the Lee ennobles the structure, even as the sheer volume and noise of traffic on Broadway renders it effete. I read it as yet another reminder of a past we have lost or given up—to the diminishment of our values and sense of community—where the importance of maintaining the meaning and functioning of the public realm was recognized and jealously guarded.

Its still a hippo in a bathtub, but now its a hippo in a plaid overcoat.