NEWSLETTER of the SOCIETY of ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIANS February 2005 Vol.XLIX No.1 ANNUAL MEETING SPEAKERS AN D SESSION CHAIRS FROM OUTSIDE OF NORTH AMERICA Register Early and Save Money This list is provided fo r the benefit of institutions that may wish to Don't forget to register early for the upcoming arrange speaking engagements with the following scholars who will SAH Annual Meeting in Vancouver (April 6- be traveling from Europe, Africa, Asia and elsewhere fo r the SAH ro, 2005). Those who register early and stay at meeting in Vancouver. Contact information is available through the SAH office. the historic Fairmont Hotel Vancouver will save $wo on the registration fees. Anstey, Timothy. Royal Institute ofTechnology. Stockholm Aureli. Pier Vittorio [Berlage Institute, Amsterdam] Baird, Kingsley, Massey University SAH invites its members and colleagues to Bauer, C. Isabel, UniversitiH Kassel attend the Society's 58th Annual Meeting in Bedard, Jean·Frans:ois, J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellow, Paris Vancouver, British Columbia, April 6-10, 2005. In Bertels. lnge. [Katholieke Universiteit Leuven] addition to the 125 scholarly paper presentations, Cavanagh. Ted, Dalhousie Un iversity meeting participants will be offered an expanded Chabard, Pierre. Ecole d'Architecture, Marne-la-Vallee array of free receptions, evening lectures, archi­ Correia, Jorge, Un iversity of Minho, Portugal tectural and landscape tours, and a two-day Croft. Catherine, The Twentieth Century Society study tour to the Provincial capital, Victoria. Geerts, Filip, Delft University of Technology Brochures detailing the Annual Meeting were Grillner, Katja, Royal Institute ofTechnology, Stockhol m mailed in January. For additional co pies or Hellstrom, Maria, Swedish Life Science University, Alnarp, Sweden questions regarding the meeting, please contact Hinchcliffe, Tanis. University of Westminster [email protected] Hughes. Rolf, Royal Institute ofTechnology, Stockholm the SAH office at 312.573.1365 or Huppert, Ann, Worcester College, Oxford We hope to see you in Vancouver. King, Stuart. [The University of Queensland] Klaiber, Susan, Winterthur, Switzerland - Pauline Saliga, Executive Director Kuroishi, Izumi, Aoyamagakuin Women's Junior College Lai, Chee-Kien, [U niversity of California, Berkeley] . National University of Singapore Lebas. Elizabeth, Middlesex University Legault, Rejean, Universite du Quebec a Montreal Lending, Maria, (Oslo School of Architecture] Lu, Duanfa ng. University of Sydney SAH Lung. David , University of Hong Kong Newsletter Malathouni, Christina, [University of London] 2 Millette, Daniel M. lnstitut de Recherche sur !'Architecture Antique, Universite Calendar of Up coming Events de Prove nce Study Tours Planned for 2005: Molema, Jan, Technische Universiteit. Delft Arts and Crafts Architecture in Pasadena, 4-7 May Morkoc, Selen B., [University of Adelaide] Nitzan-Shiftan, Alana, Technion. Haifa 2005 Oshima, Ken, Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures SAH Summer Seminar on Chicago Architecture, Peters, Walter, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Du rban, South Africa 27 June- 3 July 2005 Petrovic, Emina, Victoria University of Well ington The History and Architecture of Quebec City, ro-13 Proctor, Robert, Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art August 2005 Pullan. Wendy, University of Cambridge Coastal Maine Architecture, 12-17 September 2005 Roccasecca, Pietro, Academy of Fine Arts, Rome The Architecture and Culture of South India, 28 Santa-Ana, Lucia, National Autonomous University of Mexico December 2005 - r8 January 2006 Santa-Ana, Perla, National Autonomous University of Mexico Schmitdt. Freek. Vrije Universiteit. Amsterdam Future Annual Meetings: Scriver, Peter, University of Adelaide Vancouver, B.ritish Columbia, 6-ro April 2005 Siram, Zeynep Akture, [Middle East Technical University] Savannah, Georgia, 26-29 April 2oo6 Sterken, Sven, Ghent University, Jan Van Eyck Academy. Maastrict Tobe, Renee, University of Nottingham International Symposium: van lmpe, Ellen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Changing Boundaries: Architectural History in Transition, Paris, 1-4 September 2005 An Historic Overview of Vancouver enterprise, and the millennia! expansion of Vancouver as both port and safe haven for capital and lifestyle evidenced In 1912, at the zenith of the first surge of construction in by monumental Canadian Pacific Railway stations and Vancouver, often called Terminal City, a local newspaper hotels. The ori ginal wooden Queen Anne was replaced by editor invented the mythical character of Lady Vancouver. masonry Scots Baronial and Edwardian Classical struc­ She supposedly signified Vancouver's status as both tures, followed by the third railway station, now the Sea "world's end" and "world" city. That duality has only Bus Terminal (Barratt and Blackader 1912-14) and a fourth increased with the later economic growth of the Canadian hotel, the present Fairmont Hotel Vancouver (Archibald west, the eventual constitutional independence of the and Schofield 1929-37) and site of the 2005 SAH Annual Canadian Confederation, the interdependence of Asian and Meeting. Pacific-Rim economies with their diverse patterns of Still, the earliest distinctive Vancouver architecture migration, and the emergence of radical sensibilities emerged from these styles, in the prefabricated housing toward the environment and ethnicity. manufactured by B.C. Mills, the self-build craftsmen Jet flight and the electronic media (extensively studied homes of the Kitsilano area and most notably in the elite by the Canadian theorists Harold Innis and Marshall residences designed by Samuel Maclure and his assistant McLuhan) have repositioned Vancouver more centrally in Cecil Fox. Whereas the commercial architecture around the post-imperial global system. The city has remade its the first town site, named Gas town after one of its original architectural image from one that relied on British, denizens, copied the Chicago commercial style was promi· European and U.S. urban precedents to the innovation of nent in Tacoma and Seattle, the design of the govern men· urban form that is as technologically advanced as it is aes­ tal and Bank and Trust company offices gravitated toward thetically sophisticated. In the late 196os, the original imperial Eclecticism and Classicism. The Post Office town site (incorporated in 1886) along the final section of (Department of Public Works, 1905-ro), Carnegie Library the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway (opened in (G.W. Grant, 1902-03) and main branches of the Bank of r888) was preserved at the same time that the autojfreeway Montreal (K.G. Rea, 1924-25), Imperial Bank of Commerce centered town planning model was rejected. Nonetheless (Da rling and Pearson, r9o6-o8) or Toronto Dominion one of that model's champions, Victor Gruen, contributed (Somervell and Putnam, r919·20) represented the preva­ to the early proliferation of peripheral shopping malls and lent marriage of technical modernization wi th historical helped design Pacific Centre, the High Modernist retail iconography. The Sun Tower (W.T. Whiteway, I9II·I2), complex completed in downtown Vancouver between 1969 which for several decades was the tallest structure in the and 1976. British Empire, combined modern steel construction and The defeat of the Expressway also curtailed the federal pollution resistant terracotta brick with a grand columnar public housing project in Strathcona (1958-68) as well as entrance. The Classical Orders or the Gothic tracery used February 2005 the pace of large-scale speculative redevelopment in the in such churches as Christ Church Cathedral (C.O. business district around the main thoroughfares of the grid Wickenden, r889-95) opposite the conference hotel and in 3 intersected by Burrard, Granville, Georgia and Robson the ori ginal scheme for the University of British Columbia Streets. The exception was the West End, sandwiched (Sharp and Thompson, 1913) represented the use of sym­ between the commercial center and Stanley Park. Once bolic design language typical of a colonial regime. the preserve of wealthier immigrants, the West End has Allegiance to Great Britain resulted in high enlistment become a high-density area of high-and-low-rise rental and and casualties of Canadians in the First World War. That condominium structures since the 1956 revocation of laws stunted the British Columbia and Vancouver economies restricting the height of buildings. Its variegated configu· despite a brief pre-Depression boom in the late 1920s. ration and appearance reflect the power of real estate Then United States architectural influence predominated, investment in civic affairs·· Rudya rd Kipling being among resulting in Canadian buildings of every popular American the early investors ·· and its vibrant resistance at the popu· style from Spanish Revival to Art Deco. However the best Jar and professional levels. One exa mple of the later was Art Deco designs retained an Anglo-Scots severity. Typical the 1957 proposal by the region 's most celebrated architect, is the Marine Building (McCarter and Nairne, 1929-30) Arthur Erickson, to increase building density and elevation completed with Guinness Family funding in conjunction but configured along geographic contour lines to preserve with the erection of the rst Narrows or Lions Gate Bridge residents' views of Vancouver's superb maritime and (Palmer and Bow, 1937·38) to service their British Pacific mountain setting. Properties housing subdivis ion on the north Shore.