There's a lot of funny stuff going on in Vancouver these days, with rampant development out of control. You can put me squarely in the camp of the NIMBYs, the evil "retirees living alone in big (or not so) empty houses," the people who don't recognize that change is necessary, change is good!
I'm trying, really trying, to look for the silver linings. I thought I'd found one about six weeks ago when I spotted this headline: "Oakridge collaborates with the National Gallery of Canada". OMG -- was this possible? Oakridge is one of Vancouver's original shopping malls from the 1960s, and it occupies several square blocks of land in prime central Vancouver. That was then, this is now, when "Oakridge" with its imminent massive redevelopment has become shorthand for everything that's wrong with the way Vancouver is heading.
But now -- was the new Oakridge mall going to house a branch of Canada's National Gallery? This was big silver-lining stuff indeed.
But let's see how this astonishing collaboration has played out in the glossy posters along the Canada Line (subway). Read here how the Oakridge masterminds scoped out the National Gallery collection for a thrilling painting by....Gustave Dore (better known for his engravings).
View the painting! Zoom in on the obscure corner that Oakridge will celebrate!
And finally, see what happens when shopping mall meets masterworks:
Meanwhile, that very week, the venerable Vancouver Art Gallery (the city's art museum) was snagging the headlines with a long-awaited announcement. Now I happen to be fond of the VAG in its original location, where essential rain-screening (leak sealing!) of its underground storage space and plaza is almost complete:
Everyone knows that the gallery needs more space, and expansion plans have been debated for years. I'm on the side of the local entrepreneur and big-time philanthropist whose rallying cry was: Keep the gallery we have, put money into art not "iconic" buildings, and grow the collection into several smaller gallery spaces around town. His was the losing proposition -- which shows that it's not just grey-haired retirees in big/small empty houses who are out of touch with reality.
A new site was chosen, an international architecture firm was selected, and...ta tum..the design for the "iconic" building was recently revealed:
I'm hearing more nay's than yay's. The best comment I've read is that it looks like a stack of bento boxes.
Who knows when this meal will be served? Right now, there isn't enough money to build anything.
In a funny counterpoint, the week after the VAG foofarah, Vancouver's truly famous Mountain Equipment Co-Op announced it would relocate its flagship store to a planned building on the 2010 Olympics site. I'd say MEC's design outdoes the bentos by a long shot:
Anyway, the pseudo-art of Oakridge and the high-level shenanigans of the VAG cabal just make me want to walk away from it all.
