It’s time the truth was told: Vancouver is home to some of the ugliest architecture I’ve ever seen. What’s worse, is the city doesn’t seem to give a damn about it.
When I tell strangers that I live in Vancouver, they usually have lots of complimentary things to say about the city. They might’ve passed through on a cruise to Alaska, or they went to Whistler/Blackcomb for the skiing. Maybe they walked up and down Robson Street, or spent an enchanting afternoon in Stanley Park. If those are the only parts of Vancouver a visitor ever sees, then it is understandable that they might think I live in the most beautiful city in the world.
In truth, Vancouver is home to some ugly buildings, and the West Broadway corridor from Alma to Main is one of the highest concentrations of ugly I’ve seen in the city. Everywhere you look are bland, faceless rectangles of such gracelessness that whenever I’m on this stretch — which is often, since I only live three blocks away — I’m moved to get off of the street as fast as I possibly can.
I don’t know enough about the city’s history to know when this urban blight began, but looking through the Vancouver Public Library’s Historical Photograph Archives, I get the sense that it’s always been this way. In photos from the 1930s, the road itself appears to be a hard-packed dirt surface with inlaid trolley tracks. Trolley wires criss-cross in a mad tangle overhead, and buildings huddle beside the hardscrabble roadway like stone toads.
Today’s vision of West Broadway isn’t much better. The buildings are taller, but they’re just as unsightly. In many ways it’s a greater offense to the eye because today’s architects and builders have access to more advanced technology and better schooling, and one would hope that these advantages would reveal themselves in the facades that line one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares. As a photographer, I find it difficult to find anything of beauty that is worth documenting and sharing. It’s tempting to go after the postcard views, those beguiling vistas of False Creek with the ocean in the foreground and the mountains crouching at the rear, but let’s be real here - nine months of the year the skies are such an unrelenting shade of gray that it makes me want to dump all my gear in False Creek in frustration.
(But hey, it can be a boon if you prefer to work in black and white!)
That’s why finding “No More Vancouver Postcards” at The Tyee came at the right time. Photographer Mark Mushet is part of an exhibit called Incidental Geography: Photographic mediations on the Vancouver landscape, currently running at the Gaff Gallery on the East Side. Mushet says that like many other photographers, he’s “avoided tackling the physical reality of his hometown”. He’s part of a group of photographers who record the seedier side of Vancouver, those sights that are not likely to appear in convention and visitor’s bureaus PR packages. Mushet claims that Vancouver “has never given a shit about preserving its past and it’s never really taken chances on its future with ambitious, intelligent architectural initiatives.” One only need walk up and down West Broadway for a few blocks to see evidence of this.
Some (real estate developers) might say West Broadway is on the cusp of a new and exciting growth period. New condos are springing up like weeds, and thanks (no thanks?) to the Canada Line construction, a new multi-use development that is anchored by a Whole Foods store is in the making at the corner of West Broadway and Cambie. We know that condos bring the people, but they don’t speak to the soul; just take a walk through Yaletown and see if you don’t feel all traces of individuality, of style, of diversity or funk leave your body through your pores. I think that this rush to tear down the grittier history and replace it with bland, comfortable, amusement-park sameness is part of why Vancouver felt familiar when I first moved here; after all, I’m from Atlanta, Georgia, a city whose motto ought to be “No buildings over 25 years old!”
Ordinarily, I’d support a city’s efforts toward historical preservation, but if you can find a single building along this corridor that is worth saving, I’ll take a picture of myself kissing the side of the building and post it for all to see. If we can’t find it in the past and the present, we have no choice but to look to the future. Somewhere out there, there’s an architect or city planner who cares that sections of our city look like dead malls; hopefully this person will emerge before it’s too late for Vancouver to save itself.
