I like bold design, foolish design, brilliant. I like to be surprised and intellectually stimulated. There is a tendency for us to be cautious in order to keep the character of a given place. Enamored with antiquity we see the future as literally a strange attractor of cultural dissolution. Even buildings constructed in the 80s are considered "heritage" by some around my neck of the woods and used as an excuse to prevent further development. If I had my way, we rebuild the city from the ground up. My boy-dream is to take a wrecking ball to any building older than 10 years and then use a giant 3D printer to build a glittering city that inspires and aspires to greater heights. Bwahahaha!
But that’s just me.
Having been incorporated on the Spring of 1886, Vancouver is relatively young. As such, it’s not enslaved by tradition but tries to honor it here and there.
The cityscape is draped in retro-futurism from a time when the Bauhaus school of design was pulling away from the shackles of its modernist roots by proclaiming the supremacy of function over form. What a sight it must’ve been back then in the 70s. The 21st century had arrived earlier on the shores of the Pacific Northwest. All neuro-geographic compasses from the future pointed towards the ring of fire, just like our time-traveling forefathers had predicted.
I particularly want to focus on some of the interesting architectural forms that show us what our future can be, if we boldly ride the techno-waves of the 21st century and dive into that strange dimension beyond the confines of our imagination.
While the use of cedar and other types of wood is typical west coast style, more recent forms have taken form and function to its limits. This one is particularly exquisite and reminiscent of some great creature in its wooden skeletal framework.
Cuteness overload!
Then you walk less than a block and you have yourself an architectural encounter of the fourth kind.
I love this chunky building that looks like a prop right out of the pages of Fringe (a tv show that was actually filmed here). Its brutalist minecraft design feels like it arrived from a separate dimension. I wouldn’t be surprised if some day this building started rotating like a Rubik’s cube and just took off into outer space. That would be cool. 🤔
I don’t know what the heck is going on here.
If you can take your eyes off the bull for a moment, and focus on the distant building, then you will one of the city’s most iconic building- the Library. I’ll do a proper photo shoot some other time because this beauty deserves her own post.
Even alleys are beginning to look stylish
The leaning tower of glass, maybe?
All images by 