Rhodri Windsor L scombe

Conditions of Modernity: Si[gh]tings from

ln memory of Alan A. Macnaughton, P.C., O.C., D.L.

he discussion of the relative chronologies and properties of TModernism and Postmodernism tends to the rhetorical and global.' Comparative analysis of specific architectural commis­ sions supposedly representative of each phenomenon but within single typologies and locations remains to be attempted, espe­ cially in the Canadian context. This paper will compare the two central public libraries built in post-war Vancouver, each of which has been held to represent, or embody, the respective con­ ditions of and Postmodernism. Modernism and Postmodernism are here defined, respectively, as a universaliz­ ing anti-historicist design process centred on the technical so­ lution of functional need and concerned with social improve­ Fig . 1. Semmens Simpson , Vancouver Public Lib rary, 1957, Vancouver. ment, and as a contextually generated, historically-referenced (photo R. W. Uscombe, 1995). style seeking to attain both more particular and symbolic archi­ tectural expression. The comparison indicates that the relation­ ship between Modernism and Postmodernism is less discon­ tinuous than reflexive and revisionist in nature, and that neither has been as homogeneous as presumed. The current dependence upon either a visual or a sociological reading underplays the impact of what might be called the internal discourse of archi­ tecture, including the conditions of practice. Such readings also oversimplify the discussion of architectural contextuality and consumption. Vancouver is unusual among most major cities in having commissioned two central or civic libraries since 1945 2 While these buildings, respectively opened in 1957 and 1995 to mark­ edly divergent critical acclaim, they are equally remarkable for their aesthetic, symbolic and functional difference[s].' The 1957 library by the local firm of Semmens Simpson was incisively rec­ tilinear and chiefly dependent upon the interplay of line and plane for the formal expression of purpose and meaning (fig. 1). It was largely glazed and metallic in fabric, including even its Rhodri Windsor Liscom be teaches the history of art and architecture in the De­ external ornamentation, and hence transparent and relatively partment of Fine Arts at UBC in Vancou ver. He is the aut/10r The N ew Spirit. weightless in appearance. These qualities are particularly evi­ Modern Architecture in Vancouver 1938-1963 published by the CCA and dent at the main entrance. Recessed at the intersection of its the MIT Press in 1997. He is also the former president of tl1e SSAC. Burrard and Robson Street facades, this arrangement clearly embodies the library's declared mission of public accessibility and civic engagement (fig. 2). By contrast, and as a consequence ]SSAC I ]SEAC 25, n" 1 (2000): 3-15. © SSAC I SEAC of significant redefinition of those socio-political concepts, the

3 JSSAC I JSEAC 25. n' 1 C2000l

Fig . 2. Semmens Simpson , Vancouver Public Library, 1957, Vancouver; Burrard Street fa cade (photo G . Warringto n, 1958). (J. R. A.I. C ., by permission)

1995library is inte­ grated into a multi­ use bureaucratic and commercial complex. The library component is curvilinear, or more properly eliptical (fig. 3); enclosed if not entirely opaque; masonry finished and monumental. The team of architects - now Fig. 3. Moshe Safdie/DownsArchambault, Vancouver Public Library, 1995, Vancouver; aerial view (photo Barry Downs. by permiss ion ) a celebrated international practitioner, Moshe Safdie, in partner­ ship with the Vancouver firm Downs Archambault- reverted mation retrieval and leisure reading. Lastly, the original program to the semblance of his torical tradition. The profile and for the 1957 library included plans for commercial rental space columnation of the library recall ancient Classsical and Renais­ that, actualized in the 1995 building, has contributed to its nega­ sance precedent which is reiterated by incised mouldings delin­ tive critical reception as a facility more for commodified infor­ eating triadic patterns in its upper register (fig. 4) . Where the mation/ exchange than for public literacy.' interior of the Semmens Simpson library was open-plan and in­ What had changed profoundly between the 1950s and 1990s offensively utilitarian, the Safdie/Downs Archambault facility was the diminution of social democratic principles in the fram­ is spatially and functionally diverse as well as deliberately spec­ ing of urban policy.' This in turn impacted the definition of the tacular. overall architectural agenda and thereby the relative conceptual The visual differences reflect individual architectural taste agency of the architects. The simpler service objectives of the mid- and changes in technology, professional practice and cultural 1950s were replaced forty years later by the p reoccupation with attitudes. Yet, notwithstanding their contrasting appearance and symbol and imagery required by the municipal and institutional impact, the libraries had similar requirements. Both in the 1950s patron and largely endorsed by the public. The competition docu­ and the 1990s these requirem ents were to accomodate expand­ mentation was now prepared by professional program con sult­ ing print, publication and such new media as records and micro­ ants. Picking up on its rhetoric, Safdie/Downs Archambault re­ film, as well as an increased role for the public library in w hat is vealed their strategy in a corresponding epistemology of what now usually termed cultural production. Moreover, despite dis­ they termed "Ritual and Ceremony."'" They satisfied the func­ crepant iteration or realization, the architects con curred in many tional requirement through the superimposition of symbolism of their declared design objectives. Uppermost was maximum - even visual pageantry - in the architectural satisfaction of spatial and technical efficiency through the integration of stack practical requirement. Their written description also neatly ar­ with service and public areas, arranged as much by pattern of ticulated, and thereby partly redirected, the cruder materialistic use as by pedagogical system. An imagery of transparency is ar­ ambition masked by the grandiose and aestheticized language chitectonically appropriated through the extensive glazing of both in the competition literature: "We [the public] yearn for our in­ libraries, and most notably in the 1995 building by the glass "com­ stitutions to engender civic pride," adding in subtle contestation munity wall" across the internal entrance front (fig. 5). In both, of the entrepreneurial values re-emphasized in the resurgence of the w indow onto an information resource functions as a symbol conservative ca pitalist, or neo-liberal, politics over the preced­ of rapid accessibility." Thus in their initial scheme for the 1957 ing decade, "[w]e want them to counteract the pervasive com­ library, the local firm of Semmens Simpson stated that the build­ mercial culture."" Nearly h alf a century earlier, Semmens ing was " [d]esigned to invite [in] the citizens it will service," to Simpson had not confronted such soph istica ted if fundamentally be durable and substantial while functional, with "overall flex­ contradictory, even conflictual specifications. ibility w hich provides for ready reallocation of space" and ex­ The concern w ith spectacle and discourse was a consequence pansion.' The curtain wall was intended "to show to advantage of altered socio-cultural attitudes that intersect with aspects of the book stacks and study access within and to encourage passers­ Postmodern theory. But equally sig nificant - and not unrelated by to enter and become users."' Some thirty-five years latet~ in - was the em ergence of the professional program consultant his "Vision Statement" for the second library Moshe Safdie de­ and the revival of the limited public competition. In this compe­ fined its design concept (for which he was primarily responsible) tition Safdie/ Downs Archambault were matched against two as "display, with books enveloping the u ser, everywhere pro­ accomplished United States firms w ith expertise in commercial claiming visually w hat it has to offer."' In each library the build­ as much as institutional design: Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer of New ing and librarian operate less as defenders of culture - and its York in association w ith Waisman Dewar Grout Carter of implied socio-political hierarchy- than as facilitators of in for- Vancouver, and Kuarabara Payne McKenna Blumberg of Toronto

4 RHOD RI WIN DSOR LI SCOMBE

Fig . 4. Moshe Safdie/ Fig. 5. Moshe Safdie/ Downs Archambault, Downs Archambault, Vancouver Public Library, Vancou ver Public Library, 1995, Vancouver: 1995, Vancouver; a trium colonnade . and wcommunity wall. " (photo M. Grignon , 2000) (photo Barry Downs . by permission)

with James Cheng of Vancouver, who w ould later be commis­ the onset of Cold sioned to revamp the 1957library. The competition was judged War propaganda, by fou r architects: two local and two international. 12 They w ere to the advantage of charged with selecting a design that expressed cultural tropes library exp e ndi­ appropriate to the promotion of learning, civic dignitas and con­ ture. In his 1948 sumerism . The embrace of consumeri st values w as partly an annual repor t to outcome of the funding of constru ction through market financ­ City Council, titled ing. This policy included the sale for redevelopment of the 1957 Growing with th e building despite its heritage designation. The once stoically el­ Vancouver Public Li­ egant exterior and spacious interior were substantially altered in brary, Robinson de­ 1996-97 to accommodate garish and generic outlets for Planet scribed the public Hollywood and Virgin Records - each business, however, ex­ library as the "Uni­ emplifying the continuing internationalization of commercial versity of the People," making available everything from Robert's practice and standardization of popular taste associated with the Home from the Cold Wars to the writings of Churchill, E i senho we 1~ Modern ethos. A different expression of continuity comes in the Huxley, Kinsey and Mailer. "Good readers," he asserted, "m a ke descriptive phrases - an oasis of " ca lmness and security," and a good citizens and the library is the ounce of prevention which "treasury of culture"- used by Safdie and Barry Downs to a t­ will keep our people inform ed, balanced in their judgement and tune their project to current attitudes. firm in their belief in democracy as our way of life. An intelligent The uncompromising abstract functionalism of the 1957 li­ vote cannot be cast by an ill-informed citizen. A public library is brary embodied the values of an era preoccupied by world con­ truly an ' Arsenal of Democracy."' While announcing initial plans fli ct and the Cold War, when library buildings seemed to signify for a new main library in addition to the construction of several "free access to the w orld's know ledge for all people," and the smaller branches, Robinson's 1948 report further stated the con­ construction across Canada of community centres with in tegral temporary political consensus for expenditure on social infra­ libraries intended to promote "better citizenship" and "enrich structure. The new library would be flexible in plan, m odular in the cultural and post-educational life."" construction and include "space for commercial purposes [.. . ] The Modernist rhetoric of post-war Canadian libraries until such time as the library needs it. " m elded culture and education with free market democracy, par­ Robinson's comment underscores the need to nuance the alleling the conventionalization of Modernism in Cold-War North Modern/ Postmodern dialectic. For in commending the Modern­ America as a project divided between urban high-rise commer­ ist project, Robinson was also appeasing those civic politicians cial and suburban residential architecture. That division, with who regarded the library as a contribution to either the monu­ its ad verse impact on transportation and community, would un­ m ental hubris of the city or its economic grow th. A civic centre, dermine the comprehensive and collective tenets of Modern including a new main library and Federal offices, had been pro­ movement design as well as its public endorsement. The posi­ moted in the 1930 Harland Bartholomew City Beautiful Plan (re­ tive aspect of modernization was articulated by E.S. Robinson, newed by the conservative council in 1944 and 1947) as "stabiliz­ Director of the Vancouver Library system up to 1957. In the Feb­ ing and enhancing the business district."" For its p art the civic ruary 1947 issue of the Jou rnal of the Royal Arch itectural institute of Library Board "insisted that its new proposed main library build­ Canada, he declared: "The time has come to prove to our citizens ing had to be located as near th e heart of the business district as that the public library is not a remote institution holding no at­ possible." That notion would recur in the caption to a photo­ traction for the working man or the business man."" Surely al­ graph on the cover of the City Library 1957 annual report: "Bang luding negatively to the still operating 1903 Carnegie Library in the middle of the business district. " It also articulated th e be­ (designed by H.W. Grant), Robinson privileged the follow ing lief of Tom Ingledow, Chief Engineer of the major provincial cor­ design attributes: "friendly, inviting and functional [.. . ] simple pora tion B.C. Electric, and Chair of the Trustees of the Vancouver though distinguished." The plain language manifest in the p eri­ Art Gallery, that "cultural development must keep pace with the odic articles on library design in the J.R. A.l.C. through the 1950s industrial and economic ex pansion." 17 reflected the clear sense of objectives, m eans and exp ectations of The argument of commercial potential in cultural expansion that era and the legacy of the missionary zeal of the between­ had almost succeeded in accelerating construction of a new main the-wars Modern movem ent.'5 Such clarity was intensified by library in 1947, no longer at the proposed civic centre on Georgia

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Fig. 6. Fred La sserre, photomontage scheme for a new public library and civic auditorium, 1949-50. Fig. 8. Semmens Simpson. Collingwood Branch , Vancouver Public Library, 1952 (L. Maranda archive, by permission) (photo G. Warrington) . (B. Simpson arch ive, Collection Centre Canadien d'architecture/ Canadian Centre fo r Architecture , Montreal) Street but at the core of current re­ development along Burrard S. & T.B.P. became front-runner with a design influenced by Gor­ Street. This move was anticipated don Bunshaft's Lever House in New York (fig. 9). A glass cur­ in the earliest Modernist design tain-w alled library block was allied to a 14/ 16 storey office for the library by Frederic tower, probably intended for the 210' x 120' plot, adjacent to Lasserre, who then had been re­ the Hotel Vancouver, that just purchased by the City. Then the cently appointed inaugural Head initia tive passed to Semmens Simpson in conjunction with of the University of British Co­ C.B.K. Van N orman. Together they designed a single tall slab lumbia Department of Architec­ block, compacting lower floor library with upper floor com­ ture. 18 Aware of the Library mercial space, faced with a tartan pattern of metal frame and Board's insistence on a site in the glass and panel infill. In each case the architects deployed the business district, he won support Modernist strategies of modular reinforced concrete and steel of the Downtown Business Man's structure, open plan and curtain wall; these were still symbols Association for a strikingly lucid of technological innovation validated by the war and now ac­ Modernist complex: an 11-storey cepted as economical by commercial developers with consider­

Fig. 7. Sharp and Thompson Berwick Pratt, office block, auditorium, radio able provincial and municipal clout. Those strategies also sat­ South Hill Branch, Vancouver Public Library, station and linking 3-storey Ji- isfied the professional librarians' post-war requirement for open 1950 (photo G. Wanington). (J.R.A. I.C., by permi ssion) brary around a landscaped COUrt stacks directly integrating departmental with public areas, and within the perimeter of one city their self-image as agents of social enlightenment and personal block (diagonally southeast of the final location). This combina­ empowerm ent through literacy. Finally in 1955 the Library tion of civic and popular culture with commerce narrowly failed Board endorsed a revised 5-storey scheme b y Semmens to win public approval in March 1947 for a tax increase to raise Simpson, who, due to budgetary restraint and the small site, the $2.5 million for site and construction. The comparatively small only had to accommodate the library (fig. 10). local economy also aborted Lasserre's later and more compre­ This design presented glazed facades to the two downtown hensive 1949 scheme for a civic cultural centre on the Georgia streets bounding its site. The architectural implementation of Street site (fig. 6). user-attracting access was achieved by recessing the lobby at the Nevertheless, over the next decade, the electorate endorsed intersection of the glazed public facades, behind which the floor the funding of eighteen beachheads of literacy in schools or plate was cantilevered 12 feet from the p eriphery of the struc­ firehalls, mobile branches or "Bookmobiles" - a telling icon of tural steel grid. This counterpoint was augmented by the con­ the mechanical and social episteme of Modernism - and the tt·asting deep eave, and by the use of opaque components such building of eight branch libraries. The most highly regarded were as the painted concrete and marble veneered walls alongside the the South Hill Branch, 1950, by Sharp & Thompson Berwick Pratt adjacent buildings. These formal m etaphors of modernity were (S. & T.B.P.) (fig. 7) and the Collingwood Branch, 1952, by their to have been reinforced by a Corbusian curved elevator shaft chief rivals in the vanguard of Modernist architecture, Semmens (built square) and photocell-operated, vertical aluminum slat sun Simpson (fig. 8). Each adapted aspects of British, European and screen on the upper level of the Robson Street facade. That screen United States Modernist design to local conditions and materi­ exemplified the extensive research undertaken by the architects als. Not surprisingly, Semmens Simpson and S. & T.B.P. were in­ and their engineer, the Norwegian-born, Swiss-trained, Per T. vited by the Library Board to present separate preliminary de­ Christoffersen. He adapted new photographic techniques to signs for a new main branch in this period. At first, C. E. Pratt of record the performance of a plastic model under different weight-

6 RHODRI WINDSOR LISCOMBE

Fig. 9. Sharp and Thompson Berwick Pratt, photograph of the model for a new public library, 1953. (Annual Report, VPL. by permission) ing conditions." This technique enabled the 3. 5 air-conditioned public service floors above the tw o-storey basement (fireproof) book storage to su stain maxi- Fig. 10. Semmens Simpson, Vancouver Public Library, 1957, Vancouver; photograph of the model for the accepted design , 1956. (B. Simpson archive. Collection Cen tre Canadien d'architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture . Montreal) mum stack weight at all points. Moreover the structure could support the addition of two more floors above lar favour and professional-critica l disapproval, compounded by the upper administrative floor. A cap acity of over 800,000 vol­ imprecise accusations of functional deficiency." However, there umes was attained together with the provision of designated exist significant iconographic variations between the Roman subject departments, those most heavily used, like general infor­ original and the Vancouver edifice. In particular, the library is mation, history, applied or social sciences on the ground floor neither detached nor of dominant scale like the Colosseum, it and mezzanine (fig. 11 ). Each area was easily reached by eleva­ involves peripheral containment rather than punctuated struc­ tor or separate sets of public and service stairs, including one set ture, and it is not fully arcaded. Nevertheless, in devising their on the Robson Street front for the capacious children's depart­ composition to solve fun ctional and symbolic obj ectives, or their m ent. And much of the library interior was intriguingly visible s tructuration of cultural signification,'5 Safdie/ Downs to the passerby. Archambault certainly anticipated this popular allusion. Their That fea ture especially gratified the City Librarian, w ho in presumed historicist intention caused many commentators to his 1956 annual report had responded in the affirmative to his invoke the b y-then p ejora ti ve association with so-called own question, "Should librarians live in glass houses?" After all, Postmodernist architectural practice: the resurgent taste for his­ his Modernist branch libraries had helped boost library usage torically referenced exte rior ornamentation- facadism - that twelve percent over the previous year despite the ad vent of tele­ coincided w ith the rise of conservative political and economic vision. Ye t the new m ain library also achieved the monumental­ ideology from the mid-1970s. ity and visual relevance that had been commended in 1943 by Reaction against Modernist architectural and socio-political Siegfried G iedion, secretary of the C.I.A.M. [Congres attitudes em erged before the construction of the 1957library. The 0 Internationaux de l' Architecture Moderne]' • Semmens Simpson Modernist legacy in Vancouver increasingly seemed to be what resolved volumetric, planar and textural asymmetries through a prominent group of architects in 1958 termed "urbanicide"­ formal structural integrity and p roportional consistency. They the destruction of the downtown core through unregulated demo­ were also responsible for the commission from the local arti st lition and construction.'• The rejection of their "Project '58" pro­ Lionel Thomas of the bronze and plexiglass exterior sculpture­ posal for a downtown participatory planning agency in conjunc­ backlit by automobile headlights - evoking Babylonian and tion with the centennial of the Province heralded the decline of Assyrian cuneiforms, and the m osaic mural of the runic origins the social democratic agenda in provincial and civic politics and of language in the lobby (fig. 12).21 Signifying the classless social the consolidation of the entrepreneurial and commercial dicta mission of the contemporary library, Thomas used abstract forms that had predominated befo re 1945.27 Although several entirely to assert Modernist belief in their communicative universality, sp eculative real estate schemes such as that for Coal Harbor as well as to integrate ornament with architectural effec t. At its [Milltown] were rejected and p arts of the historic Gastown dis­ official opening on 1 November 1957 the library was lauded by trict and Chinatown w ere preserved, the civic fabric was prima­ the National Librarian and Archivist, Dr. Kaye Lamb, as "a model rily determined by property speculation.28 This financial and of functional design and architectural beauty."" cultural construction of the city arguably reached an apogee with The critical response to its successor was almost diametri­ Expo '86 and related real estate development. Each reflected the cally opposite. In the January 1997 issue of Architectuml Review, laissez-faire business attitudes of the Social Credit administra- in his regular editorial article entitled "Outrage," Peter Davey tions which regarded the city as a site of trade and diversion convicted the new library of "aggressive pasti che" inimicable to wherein public sp ace was to generate revenue rather than com­ its picturesque and architectonic setting (fig. 13). He did so on munity." These profound changes- again reflecting federa l and the single indictment that it represented a "pre-cast miniature of international phenomena, including the steady withdrawal of the Colosseum."' 3 This allusion prevails as a mark of both popu- Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation from low-income

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Fig . 11 . Semmens Fig. 12. Semmens Simpson , Vancouver Simpson , Vancou ver Public Library, 1957, Public Library, 1957, Van cou ver; ground Vancouver; mosai c floor, from mezza- main hall , by nine. L. and P. Thomas. (photo G . Warrin gton , (Annual Report, VP L, 1958). (J.RAI.C., by by permission) pe rmission)

housing and changed regulations for immigration~ are visible 90) but is more con­ in the striking contrast between the topographically unobtrusive trived in its neigh­ low-rise community development (from 1964) and bour the Eugenia strident high-rise construction of the Expo lands (from 1993). 30 Place high-rise con­ Notwithstanding a generally higher level of architectural design, dominium (1993- including work by Downs Archambault, and communal spaces 94). The fenestra­ and fa cilities, the Expo lands follow the Yaletown and other more tion and detailing recent downtown building campaigns in privileging higher in­ of the E uge nia com e residential or office accomodation. Together they represent apartments adapt a successive gentrification of a formerly depressed area of the features of the hotel. Then the central bay has a semi-circular pro­ city in which the Vancouver ci ty council wanted the 1995 library jection, conical at the entrance and flared at the uppermost level of to play a part by raising land values in contradistinction to the the main facade, intended to invoke a nail or screw. The communitarian "New Community" vision still redolent in the memorialization of the successive building activity on the once 1957 library. forested location is further and ironically conveyed by a tree planted This return to unmedia ted commercial urbanism followed at the top of the mythic nail. Elsewhere, however, the local prog­ upon various local architectural manifestations of the wider re­ eny of Postmodernist facadism seldom rises above a superficial vision of Modernist design conventions. Some aspects of that historicism, with which the Safdie/ Downs Archambault library revision are typified in three high-rise buildings standing along was implicated by several local critics.'2 Burrard Street. The earliest is the Daon Building (Musson Cattell The architectural historical references in the 1995library were Mackey Partnership; 1980-81) which heralded the transforma­ more considered and integrated with the formal solution of func­ tion in Vancouver of Modernist glass-curtain walling from signi­ tional and planning requisite. The referencing alike played bet­ fier of functional transparency in to a High-Tech icon where ter in the public arena.33 This derived in part from the much reflectivity is a surrogate for contextuality and a means to re­ greater consultative process that preceded the competition for duce actual size. Those latter ploys are even more evident in the the second Vancouver Public Library. The extent of that transfor­ hotel and office complex developed by Peter Wall (Wall Centre, mation in client-architect relationship is most evident in the varia­ 1990-94, designed by Hamilton Doyle and the Wall Design tion between the respective program and commission documents. Group). Altogether different from the sheer surfaces of the Wall The 15-page ring-bound proposal Semmens Simpson submitted Centre is the Canada Place complex, including the Pan Pacific in 1956 contained a mere two typ ed pages of conceptual and fa c­ Hotel, convention and cruise ship docking facilities (1983-86, tual explication prefacing photographs of their model and plans. Zeidler Roberts Musson Cattell Mackey and Downs It was considerably smaller even than the "Call for Exp ression Archambault), and Cathedral Place (1989-91, designed by Paul of Vision" compiled in 1991 by the Director of the Vancouver Merrick), where the architectonic vocabulary of each derives from Public Library, Madeleine A alto. Derived from a series of studies associative and contextual formal models. The roof of Canada commenced in 1980, each page was densely written around such Place recalls ships' sails and the hotel a naval vessel's conning headings as 'Architectural Concepts,' 'Key Design Issu es,' or tower. At Cathedral Place, the Neo-Gothic arches and pitched 'Design Challenges ' ~ the latter alone comprising sixteen sub­ roof are copied from the adjacent Christ Church Cathedral (1889- headings. In fact, the materials on the aesthetic program distrib­ 95, C.O. Wickenden) and Hotel Vancouver (1929, 1936-37, uted to potential competitors and then to the four co-partner­ Archibald and Scholefield) (fig. 14). The masonry-clad but es­ ships selected for the second, final round in the Fall of 1991 sentially Modernist steel frame is decorated with versions of the exceeded those concerned with technical requirements for the figural sculpture from the heritage Art Deco building it sup­ library ~notwithstanding its objective of correcting the inad­ planted (Medical Dental Building; 1929-30, McCarter and Nairne). equacy of the 1957 building to accommodate the supposedly A less straightforward , if potentially less ephemeral, imminent transfer of knowledge to hypertext and cyberspace. contextuality ca n be discerned in the high-rise architecture of Ri­ The very organization of a competition that favoured the team ­ chard Henriquez.31 Although basically Modernist in structural prac­ ing of local firms in subsiduary partnership with central Cana­ tice, Henriquez conceived the faca de as a separate entity through dian and/ or international pr ac tice s ~ exemplified by Moshe which to narrate the place of the new building in its existing con­ Safdie with offices in Toronto and J e ru s alem~ betrays the pre­ text. This strategy arguably succeeds best in the Sylvia Tower (1988- occupation with information technology and civic pomp." In-

8 RHODRI WINDSOR LI SCOMBE

Fig . 14. Paul Merrick. Cathedral Place. 1989-91 . Vancouver. (photo L. Noppen)

Fig. 13. Moshe Safdie/Downs Archambault, Vancouver Public Library, 1995, Vancouver. (photograph from P. Davey, ·outrage," Architectural Review 201, no. 1199 (January 1997): 21 /1)

deed, architecture was appropriated to manifest the essentially technocratic and commercial polemic of "world city" status as motor of entrepreneurial connectivity vaunted by Vancouver municipal politicians and their federal and provincial peers. A corollary is the absence of an accompanying campaign of branch library construction. The exception is the Renfrew Branch by Roger Hughes (1993-95), recipient of the Governor-General's Award for architecture. In company with John and Patricia Patkau's Newton Library (1989-90), in the nearby municipality of Surrey, the Renfrew library exemplifies the more s~lf-conscio u s manipulation of structure and space in the resolution of func­ tional factors that characterize renewed Modernist design on the Fig. 15. Moshe Safdie/Downs Archambault, Vancouver Public Library, 1995, Vancouver; west coast. model of the competition scheme. (photo Barry Downs, by permission) The 1991 commission was conceived primarily around sym­ bol and signage, with the library officially defined simultaneously Safdie/ Downs Archambault (fig. 15), which, it should be ac­ as agent of cultural promotion, information commodification and knowledged, scored highest in the non-binding public as well as technological populism. Equally unresolved was the language the professional adjudication despite declared distaste for its his­ of the documents distributed to the competing architects. The toricism.35 The adjudicators unanimously concurred that only competition documents contained elements of semiotic, phenom­ Safdie/Downs Archambault had resolved the several design enological and critical discourse theory. The architect reading problems and attained an integrated use of site and clear defini­ them thus confronted a slippery melange of only partially syn­ tion of circulation and library access. thesized criteria. Take one sentence from the 'Architectural Con­ Although in his "Vision Statement" Safdie invoked Louis cepts' section: "The external image of the library [including the Kalm's reinvestment of functional space with intrinsic spiritual Federal office tower] should act as a directional and informa­ value, the formal composition he and his partners devised mani­ tional device for the library patron and should make a symbolic fests descriptive representation.36 The parti depends on four con­ statement about the historical social values which the library em­ joined strategies, here defined from issues of ambience to that of bodies." Aside from the imprecise definition of those social val­ plan-form. First, the maximization of natural light without det­ ues, the architects had to valorize the book as cultural object while riment to the books, as signifier of their power to enlighten." also institutionalizing the electronic galaxy; put another way, the Second, the glazed entrance "community wall" that invitingly program material failed to indicate whether information tech­ displays the private act of reading to the public gaze. Third, the nology, and its inherently rapid evolution, was intended to ser­ functional primacy of openness and flexibility facilitated by cen­ vice or subsume the permanency of print culture. Moreover, the tral escalators between floors, moveable stacks, bridges to con­ question of imagery was complicated by instruction to, on the tiguous reading galleries, and the housing of ducting and wiring one hand, introduce a dramatic and inviting outdoor space that under a carpeted service floor thereby eliminating the need for would enhance the decrepit surrounding urban environment and, partition walls. Fourth, the Renaissance Vitruvian-figure-inspired on the o th e1~ establish a grand enclosed civic space. The archi­ plan of library rectangle within oval to accommodate its speci­ tects replied in kind, devising a conceptual fabric that inflected fied distinct floor plate with separate reading areas, accessible linguistic with architectonic tropes. Literal, or rather literary and yet impressive civic space, pedestrian transit across the sloping iconographic equivalence was most evident in the scheme by site, and integration with the Federal office. (Several of their

9 JSSAC I JSEAC 25, 11 ° 1 <2 000l

Fig. 17. Thompson Berwick Pratt and Partners, CBC Building, 1973-75, Vancou ver. (photo L. Noppen)

Fig. 18. Moshe Safdiel Downs Archambault, Vancou ver Public Library, 1995, Vancou ver; interior. (photo Barry Downs , by permission)

Fig. 16. Moshe Safdie/Downs Archambault, Vancouver Publi c Library, 1995, Vancouver; massing models. (photo Barry Downs, by permission) massing models (fig. 16) envisaged a more peripheral arrange­ ment of library and Federal office not involving an ovoid block.) The addition of columnar structural service mullions to the re­ sultant oval external mass of the library, coloured at Safdie's in­ sistence to resemble stone, clinched its reading as a transplanted Colosseum. The columnation became the chief object of criticism as be­ ing inappropriate to the indigenous as well as settler architec­ tural traditions and predominantly wood vernacular building. But Safdie grounded his design conception in the typological and cultural heritage of library design as well as customary public expectation.~8 He specifically associated the columnar motif with the ancient library of Alexandria and neoclassical libraries in London, New York, and Paris, and most especially with Jacopo France: "The building that is most precious to a Nation is un­ Sansovino's library in Venice, that were similarly contiguous to doubtedly one which houses all acquired knowledge."40 Yet there public spaces appropriated to commerce and spectacle. It is worth are still further dimensions to Safdie's frankly classical monu­ noting that Semmens Simpson also contested the prior design mentality. By virtue of being consistently embodied in each ele­ idioms of Vancouver in favour of a largely imported Modernist ment and aspect of the complex, the library images continuity architectural vocabulary. The 1957library altered rather than ac­ and collective social memory in an urban environment of rapid commodated the architectural context, and in a manner more change and reconstruction; indeed, the satisfaction of a desire deliberately autonomous than the Safdie/Downs Archambault for formal recognition and durability is a consistent feature of edifice. Nor can the major official building adjacent to Library popular reaction to Library Square." In addition, the classical Square be accounted any less obtrusive aesthetically or intrusive monumentality is abstracted to the point of being reconfigured upon the physical environment. The Canadian Broadcasting in a manner comparable to the hybridized western core of con­ Corporation building (1973-75, Thompson, Berwick Pratt and temporary popular culture, itself globalized by the information Partners, Paul Merrick project architect) is inimical to conven­ technology integrated into the 1995library. In this respect Safdie tional views of West Coast architecture and cultural ethos, if more attempted an inclusionary re-inscription or regenerative inver­ formally experimental (fig. 17). It has been popularly dubbed sion of once-dominant cultural forms quite different from the "the bunker" for the uncompromising, New Brutalist, external commodified populist historicism of the late Modern cultural statement of internal organization, structural-service system and industry and much Postmodern architecture." This process of functional materials.'" re-inscription, or redemptive transformation of iconographic By contrast, Safdie' s recourse to fundamentally classical dis­ symbolism, parallels contemporary practice in other cultural ciplines of plan and form correspond with those encyclopaedic domains. For example in the western Canadian context, British systems of knowledge instituted on classical grounds in the 18th Common Law, formerly an agent of imperial expropriation, is century. Their architectural embodiment reverberates in the con­ now being operated to establish rather than erase indigeneous scious monumentality of the 1995 library, which recalls the pre­ political and cultural identity. In a similar process, the Vancouver­ eminence accorded to knowledge by the architect Etie1me Louis based First Nations painter Lawrence Yuweluptun represents his Boullee when describing his 1785 design for the Royal Library of powerful critique of colonialism by deliberate and ironic inter-

10 RHODRI WINDSOR LI SCOM BE

Fig. 20. Moshe Safdie/ Downs Archambault, Vancouver Public Library, 1995, Vancouver; interior (photo Barry Downs , by permission)

Fig. 19. Moshe Safdie/ restitution of recre­ Downs Archambault, Va n­ couver Public Libra ry, ative landscape 1995, lost through con­ Vancouver; external colonnade. s truction. Safdie (photo Ba rry Downs, had endorsed these by permission) themes in his book For Everyone a Gar­ den (1974). Downs, in addition, inter­ preted the roof gar­ den contextually, describing it as a microcosm for Vancouver as a "place of small urban gardens and parks, returning nature to the city."45 Regrettably, the roof gar­ den fell victim to neuroses about public mischief and security, although the central part of the library building is covered by a sod [grassed] roof, sought but seldom achieved by earlier west coast architects. The omission of the public roof garden exagger­ ated the contrast between masonry external walls, reminiscent of the partially collapsed fabric of the Colosseum, and the library's glass community wall. Nevertheless, as Downs claimed, the outer walls "hook" potential library and office client, or casual visitor, mixing of native form with western pictorial conventionn Safdie into its circulation pattern just as they hook the edifice into the intended ~ and conveyed, to judge from the popularity of the urban landscape (fig. 19). The urban connectivity of the complex 1995 library~ the visual and formal invocation of shared and is reinforced by the twenty-one storey Fed era 1office tower, espe­ durable meanings amidst the volatility of multi-cultural society cially after its relocation by order of the Urban Design Panel from and advanced communication technology. Moreover Safdie/ Robson to Georgia Street. The tower does act in the guise of what Downs Archambault recovered the spectacle of the street through Downs termed a "slender spire, a campanile on the piazza"" external and internal forms and spaces that accommodated the w hich, being visible from many sectors, creates an organizing temperate climate but high rainfall of Vancouver. civic focal point. In addition the powerfully modelled tower and Undoubtedly Safdie/ Downs Archambault eschewed merely library complex counteracts the disparate scale and quality of gestural classicism through allegiance to Modernist structural ra­ the dislocated commercial, rather than comprehensive civic, de­ tionalism recurrent in their respective work. The library "col­ velopment in nearby Yale town and 'Expo Lands.' umns" are load bearing and of standardized pre-cast sections, in Classical disciplines also inform the modular planning and company with the poured-in-place reinforced concrete cladding; furnishing of the Safdie/Downs Archambault library proper, in­ both include aggregate of granite from Horsefly, B.C. Their clas­ cluding the chairs devised around a rectangular frame and ellip­ sical and humanist narration of Modernist design strategies re­ tical arm rests. The seven floor levels are arranged in an ascend­ verberates most clearly in the formal "atrium" forecourt. Here ing subject-use hierarchy from the childrens' section occupying hi-tech glass and steel replace antiquarian referencing and re­ the south quadrant of the first, below grade, floor to the upper­ tailers take the place of trader and scribe." Furthermore, entry to most administrative quarters, and Special Collections. The chang­ the library lies across a ritualistic entry bridge, initiating a trans­ ing social and political patterns of Vancouver are signified to some formative experience that is repeated in the more vertiginous extent by the placement on the second, entrance level of the bridges to the reading gallery (fig. 18). This process was to have Multilingual Collection, the popular Reading Library, Youth Col­ culminated in a roof garden replete with trees visible from street lection, and Library Shop; this last is close to the circu.lation level. The garden would have signified features of early modern counter. However, the central escalators introduce a vertica l axial thought and Modernist design: respectively the benign modera­ organization that corresponds with classically inspired Academic tion of know ledge in the human use of nature, and Corbusian practice. Similarly, the architectonic articulation emphasizes the

11 JSSAC I JSEAC 25, n' 1 C2000l

North Am erica is examined in a series of articles, chie fl y on the Evan s ton Public Library, in the journal of Architectural Edu cation 47, no. 3 (Feb. 1994): 126-161, ed­ ited by Nicole Pertuiset, who, in her article on "The N ew American Library Design," refers to the 1995 Va n cou ver Public Library as Safdie's "Forum Romanum," 127. 3 Obviously size was also a fac­ tor, the second library doubling Fig. 21 . Moshe Safdie/Downs Archambault, Vancouver Public Library, 1995, Vancouver; atrium and "community wall. " the square footage of the first to (photo M. Grignon, 2000) over 280,000 fo r a fifty- fold in­ crease in con struction cost to a 1- dignity of civic literacy by contrasting the lower arcaded and Notes most $100 million, albeit including artificially illuminated service and stack areas w ith the periph­ 1 The extensive literature on their the Federal Office Tower. These eral expansive and naturally lit spaces (fig. 20). This contrast also attributes is typified b y J.F. figures are based upon documents recognizes the dialectic in current librarianship between the lit­ Lyotard, trans. G. Bennington and in the archi ves of the Va ncou ver erary (the book/ print) and the technical (the screen/ digital) as B. Massumi, The Postnwdern Con­ Publi c Libr ary and of D own s dition (Minneapolis, University of Archambault and Partners, to­ well as the traditional demarcation between reading and brows­ Minnesota, 1984), David H arvey gether w ith the booklet, Van cou ver ing, individual study and consultative research. The positioning ed., Tlu Condition of Post Modernity Public Library, distributed at the li­ of carrals next to the community wall integrates the private act (Oxford, Oxford University Press, brary. For the architectural histori­ of reading with the public activity of literacy through formal 1989), Anthony Gidden s, The Con­ ca l contexts of both libraries see structure and spatial volume that conjoins the monumental with sequences of Modernill; (Stanford, Harold Kalman, Robin Phillips Ca., Stanford University, 1990), and Robin Ward, Exploring the functional, the technical with the aesthetic and the spectacu­ Tim Woods, Begi11ning Po st­ Vancou ver. Th e Essential Architec­ lar with the commercial (fig. 21). In that respect the 1995 library modemism (Manchester, Manches­ tural Guide (Van couver, U.B.C. most clearly unites properties and effects customarily associated ter University Press, 2000), and Press, 1993), and for the growth of with both Modernism and Postmodernism. Gary Genosko ed., The Cuattari the Vancou ver library system, es­ The reintegration of symbolism and contextualism into ab­ Reader (Oxford, Blackwell, 1996); pecially in the post-1945 era, and and w ith specific referen ce to ar­ the socio-cultural phenomenon see stract functionalist Modern movement design had been predicted chitecture: Kenneth Frampton, R. Windsor Liscombe, "The Cul­ by one of its most ardent advocates: "Everyone is susceptible to Modern Architecture. A Critical His­ ture of Mod ernism : Vancou ver's symbols,"•7 Siegfried Giedion averred in his 1943 essay. tory (Toronto, Oxford University Public Libraries 1947-1957," in Ar­ Vancouver's post-war civic libraries demonstrate that this pro­ Press, 1991 rev. e d.), C harl es chitecture and Culture (Ottawa, cess has come to be one of reflexive continuity wherein architec­ Jencks, The Language of Post-Mod­ Carl eton University, 1992), 358- ern Architec ture (New York, 361. tural form and imagery are successively redefined through pub­ Rizzoli, 1977), Heinrich Klotz, Th e 4 The impact of new communica­ lic ideology, professional intent, and commercial interest. The two History of Post Modern Architecture tion technologies on library design Vancouver library commissions map both the endurance but com­ (Cambridge, Mass., M.I.T., 1988), is examined in Dean Harrison ed., plex changes, or slippages, in Modernist theory and practice and N eil Leach, Rethinking Arclli­ Library Building 1984-1989 (Lon­ across the transition from post-war Reconstruction to later cen­ tecture. A Reader in Cultural Theory don, LSL, 1996), and Library Build­ (London, Routledge, 1997). This ing in the United Kingdol//1990-1994 tury consumerist technocracy. In the final analysis, their evident article derives from a paper read (London , LSL, 1995), and on architectural differences reflect a reconfigura tion more than cae­ at the 1997 Society of Architectural librarianship in Technology in Pub­ sura of Modernisnc that is emblematic of the increasingly hybrid Historians Annual Meeting in Bal­ lic Libraries (London, Library As­ social and economic conditions of modernity. timore, and from research for The sociation 1994), Herbert F. White, New Spirit. Modem Architecture in Th e Myth of tl1e Electronic Library: Va ncouver 1938-1963 (Montreal, Libmriansl1ip and Social Clumge in Va ncouver and Cambridge, Mass.; America (Westpor t Conn., Green­ Canadian Centre for Architecture, wood, 1994), Anne C. Lipow ed ., D o u glas & Mcintyre and MIT Building Partnersh ips: Co111puti ng Press, 1997). and Library Professionals (Berkeley, 2 C ivic library architecture in Ca., Library Solutions Press, 1995),

12 RHODRI WINDSOR LISCOMBE

and William F. Birdsa II, lnfonnation tural concept and practice are out­ main proponen ts and the contem­ 202. Chirstoffersen described the Superhighway: The role of librarians lined in Irena Murray ed., Moshe porary professional publications, process in "Structural Design by information sciwtists and intermedi­ Safdie: Buildings and Projects 1967- journals and books. It is also in­ Model Analysis," J.R.A .I.C. 33, no. aries (Colchester, Essex, University 1992 (Montreal, McGill University, formed by recent histories of the 8 (1956): 286-290. of Essex, 1995). For a broader 1996) and the architect's own Be­ movement, most notably Kenneth 20 In an essay entitled "The New contextualiza tion see Roger yond Habitat (Cambridge, Mass., Frampton, Modern Architecture, Monumen tality," in Paul Zucker Chartier ed., The Culture of Print H arvard University, 1970). and Joan Ockman, Architecture ed., New Architecture and City Plan­ (Princeton, Princeton University 8 Discussed b y Pertuiset, "The Culture 1943-1968 (New York, Co­ ning (New York, Philosophical Li­ Press, 1989) and George P. Lan­ New American Library Design," lumbia U niversity Press and brary, 1943), 549-68. dow, Hypotext. The Convergence of and variously in Walter Ong, Oral­ Rizzoli, 1993). The quotation is 21 The conceptual and formal pro­ Contemporary Critical Theory and ity and Literacy (London, Routledge, from the submission of the Cana­ gram for each work (the mural Technology (Baltimore, Johns 1990), Richard Sennet, Flesh and dian Teachers Federation to the bei ng designed in collaboration Hopkins, 1992). Stone. The Body and the City in West­ Federal Committee on Reconstruc­ with his w ife, Patricia), are d e­ 5 Explanatory sta tement in the il­ ern Civilization (New York, Norton, tion and Re-Establishment in 1944, scribed in a pamphlet printed by lustrated ring-binder submitted by 1994), and Noam Chomsky ed., National Archives of Canada, the Library in conjunction with the Semmens Simpson to the Library The Cold War and the University: Record Group 14 (House of Com­ opening of the main branch. Board, Douglas C. Simpson Toward an intellectual History of the mons) Aa 87-88/146, vol. 39, Feb. 22 From the speech delivered by archive, CCA. Postwar Years (New York, New 2, p. 7-10. the National Librarian and Archi­ 6 E.S. Robinson reiterated the idea Press, 1997) . 14 E.S. Robinson, "Libraries for vist of Canad a, Dr. Kaye Lamb, of access oriented transparency in 9 The demise of social democratic Today," J.R.A.l.C. 24, no. 2 (1947): quoted in the 1957 Annual Report, his article, "Public Library, thought in urban and cultural 60 describing the new library as "a Vancou ver, Britis h Columbia," te rms is mappe d by Detlef 15 In April1959 (vol. 36, no. 4) the vital weapon[ .. . ] to help with the Journal of the Royal Architectural Mertens, Metropolitan Mutations. library issue included an article by battle for men's mind[ ... ] being in Institute of Canada (J. R.A.I.C. ) 33, The Architecture of Emerging Public Jean Scarlett of the Calgary Public the middle of the business dis­ no. 10 (1956): 368-372. Spaces (Toronto, Little Brow n, Library Board pronouncing " [t]he trict." The complimentary rhetoric 7 Safdie, "Vision Statement," Oc­ 1988), Jurgen Habermas, The Struc­ use of the library is no longer a recurred in the loca I press, typified tober 1991, Downs Archambault tural Transformation of the Public privilege granted, it is a necessity by an extensively illustrated article archive. This was in deliberate Sphere (Cambridge, Mass., MIT for citizens of a democracy" (p. in the Province, 16 November 1957, contradistinction to the massively Press, 1991), Rob Shields, Places on 105). However, Hilda Gifford, li ­ especially praising its "spacious­ contained new Chicago Public Li­ the Margin. Alternate Geographies of brarian of Carleton University, re­ ness [and] ultra-modern" style. brary (1988-90) designed by Modernity (London, Routledge, gretted "the current compulsive 23 Peter Davey, "Outrage," Archi­ Hammond Beeb y and Babka with 1991), and Michael Keith and Steve use of large expanses of glass in tectural Review 201, no. 1199 (1997): particular emphasis upon moni­ Pile, Place and the Politics of Iden­ public libraries." 21 / 1. Davey, in justly acknowledg­ tored access. The continuing re­ tity (London, Routledge, 1993), 16 The lates t version of the ing 's Provincial s p ect for, but fundamental among others. Bartholomew Plan is reproduced Law Courts (1979-1983) as a "mas­ reconfigura tion of Modernist prin­ 10 "Vision Statement," October in J.A. Walker, "Vancou ver British terpiece of modern public build­ ciples, and especially functional 1991. Columbia. Planning Comes of Age ing," failed to commend the 1957 analysis and structural technology 11 Ibid. -After Twenty-One Years of Suc­ Library. The more conciliatory as generators of design, is evident 12 They were, from Vancouver, cessful Pioneering Vancouver Re­ comments on the new library itself in Safdie's sentence from the "Vi­ Bing Th om, chair, and Jerry vises its Town Pla n for Future include this assessment: "a com­ sion Statement": "It must have a Robinson, serving President of the Growth," J.R.A.l.C. 24, no. 9 (1947): paratively simple, modest, rectan­ sense of permanence, and must Architectural Institute of B.C., and, between p. 310-311. gular building comple tely con­ transcend the fa shion of the day interestingly, an architectural pro­ 17 From an article on Ingledow in cealed from the outside b y the when its conception is deeply grammer; the external judges were the Vancouver Sun, 29 March 1959. overblown cardboard stage set. rooted in its program, in a passion Bill Pedersen of the major New Ingledow was encouraged by the Perhaps there is something to be for those who use and work in a York firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, and local Maecanas A lbert Grauer, said for working from the inside building, and in understanding the current recipient of the presti­ Chairman of B.C. Electric, whose outwards after all. " Trevor Boddy that style emerges from the mate­ gious Pritzker Prize for Architec­ patronage of architecture and the sought to identify the library w ith riality of a building and the au­ ture, Fumihiko Maki. They were arts is recounted in Liscombe, New faca dist architecture in Vancouver thentic expression of the modes of joined b y the Mayor, Gordon Spirit, 52, 102-104. in "Plastic Lions Gate," Paul its construction." In a subsequent Campbell, Les Mitchell, chair of 18 This section summarizes Delaney ed., Vancouve r. Represent­ passage, Safdie declared: "The li­ the Library Board and Councillor Liscombe, New Spirit, 94-98 and ing the Po st Modern City (Van­ brary is for everyone, and every­ Libby Davies. "Vancouver libraries." cou ver, 1994). Incidentally, the thing about the architecture must 13 Th is d efinition of Modernis t 19 Interview with Per T. Christ­ curving facade and repeated fen­ say, 'Here 1 am, come in, see what architecture is chie fl y based upon offersen, 1995; a brief biography estration might equally be likened I have to offer'." Safdie's architec- both the theoretical writings of its appears in Liscombe, New Spirit, to B.H. Latrobe's radial plan Vir-

13 JSSAC I JSEAC 25. no 1 C2000l

ginia State Penitentiary, Richmond 30 An uncriticall y laudatory ac­ 35 Urban Design Panel Reports Portrait of Arthur Erickson (Madeira Virginia, 1798-99; see ).A. Cohen count of the earl y Expo Lands de­ and interview with Bing Thorn in Park, B. C., 1981): 82-83; see also and C. Brownell, The Architectural velopment appears in Anthony November 1997. The competition Liscombe's introductory essay to Drawings ofBenjmnin Henry Latrobe Chan, Li Ka-Shing: Ho ng Kong's judges noted that the Safdie/ Barbara Schapiro, Arthur Erickson: ( ew Haven, Yale University Press, Elusive Billionaire (Toronto, Mac­ Downs Archambault scheme C, was Selected Projects 1971-1985 (New 1994). millan, 1996). The unmaking of the "referred to as the 'Colosseum'" (p. York, Centre for American Rela­ 24 The press criticism is legion, comprehensive regional planning 14) and that "a large part" of their tions, 1985). typified by Andrew Brown, "Colos­ regulations by the Social Credit discussion "had to do with the lit­ 40 Paula Lee, "Standing on the sal Blunder," Vancouver Sun, 16 Party in the mid-1980s and gener­ eral aspect of the 'Coliseum' ex­ Shoulders of Giants. Boullee's 'At­ May 1992, or the shorter piece in ally pro-development policy of the pression and the potential for las' Facade for the Bibliotheque du Sha wn Blore, "Building Smiley­ Vancouver City Council - typi­ 'folly"' (p . 9). They "recommended Roi," Journal of the Society of Archi­ vill e," Vancouver Magazine 32, no. 9 fie d by the failure to moderate that design development of the tectural Historians 57, no. 4 (Decem­ (November 1999): 51. The sharp gentrifica tion in the downtown architectural detailing take a direc­ ber 1998): 404-31. division between public and pro­ Eastside and the failure of low-in­ tion that con veys a more uniquely 41 As evident from a poll taken of fessional reaction partly corre­ come housing schemes for the Va ncouver character rather than mature learners from the Vancouver sponds to the distinction between fo rmer Woodwards building - one borrowed from antiquities" downtown east side attending the plebian culture and patrician taste have coincided w ith the under­ even if it had "potential to become segment of Humanities 101 taught drawn by C.P. Thompson in the mining of the professional status a great library with broad recog­ by the author in October-Novem­ journal of Social History 7 (1994): 382- of the architect, both through fee nition" (p. 9) . ber 1999. An excellent summary of 405; !an Chambers would add the undercutting and diminished in­ 36 Safdie, "Vision Statement," the deeper problems of architec­ third ca tegory of official culture. put in the planning process. Downs Archambault archive. tural practice in an era of cultural 25 Peter Jackson, Maps of Meaning. 31 A complementary view of Safdie was primarily responsible disloca tion and what Alvin Toffl er An introduction to cultural geogra­ Henriquez's work was argued by for both the conceptual and plan­ has denominated "After Shock," phy (London, Routledge, 1989), Howard Shubert, curator of the ning processes of design, as well appears in Gilbert Herbert," Archi­ esp. p. 175-77, and Derek Gregory C. C. A. and Vancouver Art Ga ll ery as for identifying the architectural tec ture in an Age of Uncertainty," and john Urry eds., Social Relations exhibition and catalogue Richard his torica l exemplars w hich are in The Search for Synthesis. Selected and Spatial Structures (London, Henriquez and the Tl1eatre of Memory cited in the text below. Those li­ writing on architecture and planning Routledge, 1985) . (Montreal, C.C.A. 1993); see also braries are related to the develop­ (Haifa, Technion, 1997): 319-24. 26 Briefl y examined in Liscombe, Andrew Gruft, Measure of Consen­ ment of the typology by Nikola us 42 See Homi Bhabha, "Dissemi­ New Spirit, 57. The proposers were sus: Canadian Architecture in Tran­ Pevsner, A History of Bu ilding Types Nation" in Nation and Narration Arthur Erickson, Geoffrey Massey, sition (New York, 49th Parallel, (Princeton N.J., Princeton Univer­ (London, Routledge, 1990), 255- E.J. Watkins, Peter Oberlander and 1985). sity, 1976), 91-110. 66, where the author proposes this Wells Coa tes, the Canadian who 32 Especially Boddy, "Plastic Lions 37 The "Vision Statement" com­ potential shift in meaning. The had moved to Britain in the 1920s Ga te"; a more measured analysis mended Kahn's Exeter Library uncritica I commodifica tion of his­ there to become the leading indus­ appears in Christopher Thomas, and Philips Academy (1968-70) torical culture was condemned by trial designer and proponent of "Canadian Colossus," Architecture and Raymond Moriyama's Metro­ Theodor Adorno, trans. Robert Modernism. 84, no. 10 (October 1995) : 72-79. politan Library, Toronto (1974-76). Hullot-Kentor, Aesthetic Theory 27 The most useful sources for the 33 Safdie had already experi­ 38 The conservative expectations (Minneapolis, University of Min­ development of Vancouver, and of mented with the rotunda and ar­ of those who visit or use cultural nesota, 1997). Aspects of these its place in provincial affairs, are cade in his unsuccessful scheme institutions and especially the ideas are discussed in Richard Graeme Wynn and Tim Oke eds., for the extension of the National preference for authorizing strate­ Cavell, "Theorizing Canadian Vancouver and Its Region (Vancouver, Museum of Scotland, illustrated in gies, are documented in N icola Space: Post Colonial Articulation," U. B.C. Press, 1992), Patricia E. Ro y, Sophia Dekel, Moshe Safdie: Mu­ Lis us and Richard Ericson, "Au­ in T. Goldie, C. Lambert and R. Vancouver: An 1/lustrated History semn Architecture 1971 -1998 (Te l thorizing Art: The Effect of Multi­ Lorimer, Canada : Theoretical Dis­ (Toronto, Lorimer, 1980), and Jean Aviv, University Art Gallery, 1998), media Formats on the Museum course/Oiscours theoriques (Monh·eal, Barman, The West beyond the We st 107-108. Experience," The Canadian Review Association for Canadian Studies, (Toronto, 34 The emergence of a new genus of Sociology and Anthopology 36 1994), 75-104. Press, 1991). of civic ideology (apparent in th e (May 1999): 199-216. 43 Charlotte Tow nsend-Gault, 28 Liscombe, New Spirit, a nd p romoting of Expo '86 in 39 On the site selected for the 1995 Lawrence Pa ul Yuweluptun, Born to Kalman, Exploring Vancouver. The Vancouver) is addressed by Jill library, Arthur Erickson had in Live and Die on Your Colonialist Res­ promotion and contes tation of Delaney in "Re-Vision and Repre­ 1975 devised a drama ti ca ll y ervations (Vancou ver, H elen and these schemes circa 1958-1978 are sentation: The Public Square in the techno-functionalist scheme for Morris BelkinArtGallery, 1995).A the subj ect of a forthcoming article Privatized City," journal of the Soci­ the Federal office that envisaged particularly interesting example of by this author. ety for the Study of Architecture in two glass and steel octangula r such transposition, however ironic 29 Discussed in Habermas, Public Canada 22, no. 4 (1 997): 88-93, citing tubes elevated on stilts; reproduced or parodic, is his "Blue Lady" of Sphere. recent studies of this phenomenon. in Edith Iglauer, Seven Stones. A 1986 referring both to French Fauve

14 RHODRI WINDSOR LI SCOMBE

and Haida stylisms- neither na­ ti ve since his ancestry is Kootenay. 44 This humanist element be­ comes more apparent in compari­ son with two comparable almost contemporary civic libraries: the Central Library in Mississauga, Ontario, 1988-90, by Shore Tilbe Henschel Irwin Peters, w here the quasi-classical referencing is more attenuated and commercially packaged, and Will Bruder's Phoe­ nix Public Library, 1992-95, where the heritage of French library ar­ chitecture is reconstituted as monumentalized technocracy. See Abby Busse!, "Will Power," Pro­ gress ive A rchitecture 76, no. 7 Guly 1995): 80-89. 45 "Vision Statement," October 1991, Downs Archambault archive. 46 Ibid. 47 See note 20, quoted on p. 568, in Paul Zucker (1943).

15 16 17