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Thoughts on new BC Place as downtown lantern, good, bad, indifferent?

January 26th, 2012 · 21 Comments

Thanks all for the previous comments on the billboard, which I’ll incorporate into a story in the future.

Now I’m looking for people who have feelings about our new glowing spaceship downtown, BC Place the building as a whole. Anyone? Email me or call please — see About for the contacts.

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Everyman

    Why is it most people make disparaging comments about the nearby residents? Like: “They’re living downtown, what did they expect”.

    Why is it that BC Place does not get called to adjust to changing times? When BC Place was built it was on the edge of downtown next to industrial land. Now it sits in the middle of a largely residential area. When teh renos were planned, why wasn’t PAVCO just get told to “deal with it, you’re operating in a residential area”?

    Personally, I think the whole thing should have been moved out to Queensborough or North Delta where it would be more central to everyone in Metro Vancouver.

  • HappyReturnee

    It’s so ugly, I’m embarrassed. I didn’t realize that all those pointy bits were going to stay after the construction work was done. Definitely not a fan, I’m afraid.

  • IanS

    I like it. From my deck, it looks like a giant UFO which has landed downtown. Sadly, I only have a partial view.

  • Joe Just Joe

    Put me down as someone that likes it as well. I like the lighting on the new one, but I prefered the look of the old one slightly more. Inside its no comparision though the new stadium is much better.
    Frances, what are your thoughts now that it’s done? I recall you weren’t the biggest fan when it was going up. Have your feelings changed at all?

  • spartikus

    Well, leaving the economics of it aside and going strictly on the aesthetics…I don’t like it – a big dead spider. It’s very difficult to make sports facilities look pretty, understood, but the rigging is, er, not elegant. The lighting is garish and dated too.

    As for viewing sports from inside I’ll reserve judgment, as I’ve only been to one Whitecaps game in the evening, which is perhaps not the optimal time.

  • Xerxes

    I like it. I’ve never been close to it, but it looks nice from a few kilometres away.

  • Grant

    I actually don’t mind the lighting. That’s not the end of the story. I’m with Everyman here.

    BC Place’s aesthetic impact doesn’t stop at its property line. Like it or not, those two blisters are a very effective barrier cutting off part of the city. Along with the viaducts and DTES scene, I think the stadiums are one of the biggest things keeping the neighbourhoods around them (including mine) from reaching their potential. Costco and Tinseltown (a sick mall that close to the city centre?) are symptoms.

    By permitting the roof renovation to go through, we’ve made it unlikely that the stadium will leave the city anytime soon. Regardless of what it looks like, that’s a shame.

  • Tiktaalik

    In a contest between old stadium vs new I think the new design, including the new roof, wins hands down. The glowyness of it is a pleasant surprise and the colour features are often very interesting.

    I’m certainly against the huge, bright billboards that surround the stadium, but the glowing roof for special events is fantastic.

  • Edward

    I agree with Spartikus: illuminated dead insect with its legs in the air.

    However, I will never be able to get over the cost we have paid for this insect. A lot of public cash for boat shows and ball games.

  • gmgw

    Spartikus preempted me on the “big dead spider” analogy, which I’ve been using a lot. I would add the word “mutant” to that phrase, however. It’s hideous. But then I’ve despised the stadium ever since it was first built, for reasons that have little to do with architecture; it and its sister arena to the north should never have been erected downtown. There are far, far better (and nobler) purposes to which the land could have been put. Put the damned Coliseums out among the Surrey proles who infest such constructs, I say. As for the overhaul, I become enraged every time I look at that grotesquerie and think of all the meaningful things that could have been done with that $500 million. I will not be satisfied until that obscene monstrosity has been razed to the ground (and replaced, ideally, with parkland).
    gmgw

  • Erin Green

    Aesthetically? Whatever. Vancouver seems to have glowing light syndrome ever since the Olympics….”Sorry about the shitty architecture and lack of actually interesting landmarks, but here, how about some glowing lights that change colour!”

    “Illuminated dead insect” on its back. I like that.. It’s true…In some strange way it is fitting of Vancouver and our obsession with not being “not fun”. Look at us! We can do weird things like other cities too!
    Perhaps it’s a little symbolic of the growing pains in our city right now…

  • Michael McCarthy

    During the day it’s dreadful.
    Coming out of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre after a performance, though, the new stadium’s lighting looked like the future had arrived downtown. And I liked that feeling.

  • Guest

    It’s great – far more cohesive in appearance than the gratuitous blue neon lines that randomly line the tops of a few buildings across the water at the Olympic Village.

    Together with Science World and its sometimes whirring multi-colour strobes (like Science World’s Jack-o-Lantern and BC Place’s candy cane), they add a dynamism that is otherwise absent in a patchy skyline of speckled condos.

    Now imagine if the BC Place site had been redeveloped with expensive waterfront condos and a new stadium built out at UBC. Hmmm.

  • Bill McCreery

    Spartikus is right – the upside down insect is not a pleasant sight. Also, the ‘mood’ lighting, especially around the base of the dome is to bright. Needs to be toned down, not just to satisfy the neighbours. Aesthetically too much, even if it’s a good thing, becomes garish, taking away from the overall image of the complex rather than tastefully, more subtly enhancing it.

    Since I’m a process guy, I must bring up that the Provincial Government presented this 1/2B dollar redo as a faite de complis. The City had little to do with even minor refinements. One wonders what the outcome might have been had the Province been required to go through due process like everyone else?

  • Frank Murphy

    I was at the Whitecaps first game in October and the roof was opened with much fanfare but because of the fabric masking the empty upper level and extending over the lower level — while it did create a more intimate small stadium feel — completely blocked out the view of the roof opening. For soccer you don’t have the experience of watching the game under blue sky and natural light. The curtain masking the upper level shouldn’t obstruct the view of the roof from the lower level.

  • AnnetteF

    We look directly at Science World and across to BC place from our condo and have really been enjoying the upgrades to both. The constantly changing lights on both facilities have been a big hit for us. The old stadium reminded me of a mushroom.
    I live downtown for a reason. I like the excitement that the games bring to our neighbourhood. Though it is true that the stadiums make walking into the downtown core more challenging, I am happy that they are located where they are. Hockey riots aside, I think that having the stadiums downtown is a good thing.

  • Frank Murphy

    Of course the fabric screen blocking the view and sun does save you from the problem this guy’s having: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/YzjrFRbkppguXBn6gfBzPufYT1Wnaq5auwJyQu3_tBE?feat=email

  • SD

    When the lights are set to glow red, I can’t help but yell “jump” whenever we drive by.

  • Adam Fitch

    finally, a sensible comment in this thread, from AnnetteF. Downtown is for excitement. I do not agree with those who say that the stadia “block” the downtown’s development and connections. It takes a few minutes to walk around it, less to bike around it. Would ANOTHER cluster of condos have been better? and don’s say the land should have been a park. there are already parks next to it.

    As to putting the stadium out in surrey… that’s crazy. Yes, it might be in the center of the region geographically, and closer to the YOBS, but EVERYONE would have to drive there, and it would be a big black hole of deadness for all but maybe 20 days a year. look at cloverdale raceway as an example.
    Plus the waste of resources to duplicate the stadium… insane.

    anyway, I really do like the new look at night with the lights, but I would like it if there were more light tricks, like rapidly changing light paterms.

  • Lewis N. Villegas

    I’m told the roof leaks.

  • Andrea C.

    I remember the first time I saw the new lighted roof on B.C. Place. I was in a cab crossing the Cambie Street bridge, and I yelled, “My God – that is tacky!” quite spontaneously. It’s ugly, day or night, inside or out, and when I think of how much this bit of eye cancer cost us….