#retrospectorcanada

[smallstudiodesign]

RetroSpector🇨🇦 #flashbackfriday — Coast Modern made here || Arthur Erickson, Canada’s first “household name”, architect, (among a handful whose name would garner a blink of recognition outside architecture). • Photos of Erickson from Vancouver Sun & UBC Archives, show a proud but fatigued young architect with model of UBC’s “Museum of Man”, aka Museum of Anthropology (MOA). His unprecedented design & configuration for a museum was maverick & pioneering —> changing the way collections were archived/ stored & displayed • His modernist sensibility was nurtured by his sensitivity to environmental context with programmatic nature of the project & its setting — in this case, dealing with indigenous/aboriginal cultural artifacts & art worldwide (yet focused on local Coast Salish First Nations). Erickson understood the vital yet fragile nature of this complex situation. Like a ballet dancer, his presentations/results always so fresh, effortless, graceful & simple, often belied the effort behind the scenes. MOA, one of his first nonresidential, educational-institutional-cultural projects since his Simon Fraser Univ.(SFU) campus proposal atop Burnaby Mtn. His kind of modern was intricately interwoven in a site’s landscape, & always built as if they “grew out of the ground organically”. • More artist/sculptor than architect, this jet setting, globetrotting design influencer, whose commissioned work took him to every corner, from Far East, the MidEast, back East (🇨🇦), East-coast 🇺🇸 (Washington, DC). After graduating from McGill U’s (School of Architecture), his very first client was his mother — a modest commission, with a modest budget. The resultant carport was anything but modest, nor garishly out-of-place. The budget didn’t stop a bold strikingly modern extension to the WestVan family home to manifest. Somehow, this little addition, so carefully designed, presented & built, wound up featured in The New York Times’ design editorial with rave reviews. The rest, they say, is HIS-story! #retrospectorcanada • #RetroSpector • #arthurerickson • #vancouverarchitecture • #vancouverhistory • #heritagevancouver • #smallstudiodesign • (at Museum of Anthropology) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGtG_wzBz2W/?igshid=mtklthbpyyfc

[smallstudiodesign]

RetroSpector Canada 🇨🇦(Pt.2): (fall-winter 1972-73)—“There’s a lot of life in Vancouver & EATON’S is going your way!” ||>> Fashion Forward — EATON’S campaign w/ full colour pullout insert in The Vancouver Sun (+ other print media ) MidCentury Modern Commercial Advertising Illustration — flip through hand-drawn artist impressions of home decor fashion forecast for 1973 • illustrates decors of urban & suburban home furnishings each expressing different personalities dwelling on Canada’s West Coast. From the ultra-mod WestEnd hirise swinger’s/bachelor pad to West Van’s Upper Levels traditional-chic. Backstory: The venerable Toronto based, Coast-to-Coast department store had long occupied the former Spencer’s Dept. Store (at W. Hastings & Richards) announced its new Pacific Regional flagship store. late 1960’s—1980 Cadillac Fairview (Toronto) proudly opened up sequential phases in its growing Canadian Pacific empire “Pacific Centre” was the property developer’s jewel in its crown (then) — an above ground “Grande Ensemble” of gleaming-white anchor store adjacent to its jet-black Miesian inspired minimalist towers — designed by Los Angeles based Cesar Pelli, Architect • the massive Pacific Centre Mall & office - Hotel complex spanning 3 city blocks, was pretty radical for our sleepy branch office, port city. • Vancouverites didn’t know what hit them. Their immediate response in media & street was a slew of comic pejoratives & vitriol w/ nicknames: “Great White Urinal” or “ Great White Latrine/Toilet”. & Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower as “Tower of Darkness”, or “Black Monolith”. As a kid I felt, “finally the future & space age had arrived” & the Village-of-Vancouver felt fresh, upscale + “happening”. • #pacificcentre • #Eatons • #retrospector • #retrospectorcanada • #Smallstudiodesign • (at Pacific Centre Mall) https://www.instagram.com/p/CFvkiv9hQlm/?igshid=1phchb55u9rwa

[smallstudiodesign]

RetroSpector Canada 🇨🇦: (fall-winter 1972-73)—“ There’s a lot of life in Vancouver & EATON’S is going your way!” ||>> Fashion Forward — EATON’S campaign w/ full colour pullout insert in The Vancouver Sun (+ other print media ) — the venerable Toronto based, Coast-to-Coast department store had long occupied the former Spencer’s Dept. Store (at W. Hastings & Richards) announced its new Pacific Regional flagship store. 20thC. Modern Commercial Advertising Illustration — flip through hand-drawn artist impressions of Women’s & Men’s fashion forecast for 1973. It illustrates Vancouver lifestyle w/ urban sophisticates in smart casual fashions while going about their lives in our picturesque city-by-the-sea. Backstory: late 1960’s—1980 Cadillac Fairview (Toronto) proudly opened up sequential phases in its growing Canadian Pacific empire “Pacific Centre” was the property developer’s jewel in its crown (then) — an above ground “Grande Ensemble” of gleaming-white anchor store adjacent to its jet-black Miesian inspired minimalist towers — designed by Los Angeles based Cesar Pelli, Architect • the massive Pacific Centre Mall & office - Hotel complex spanning 3 city blocks, was pretty radical for our sleepy branch office, port city. Vancouverites didn’t know what hit them. Their immediate response in media & street was a slew of comic pejoratives & vitriol w/ nicknames: “Great White Urinal” or “ Great White Latrine/Toilet”. & Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower as “Tower of Darkness”, or “Black Monolith”. As a kid I felt, “finally the future & space age had arrived” & the Village-of-Vancouver felt fresh, upscale + “happening”. • #pacificcentre • #Eatons • #retrospector • #retrospectorcanada • #Smallstudiodesign • (at Pacific Centre Mall) https://www.instagram.com/p/CFu-ZWBhMXR/?igshid=r9nkaezc4ipt