In celebration of West Coast design Vancouver Sun September 1, 2018

To draw attention to the West Coast's distinctive style of architecture, the West Vancouver Art Museum has, for the past 13 years, organized an annual tour of mid-century and other modern homes.

     In Palm Springs, it’s called Modernism Week.
     Since 2006, thousands of people gather each February to celebrate mid-century architecture and design. Last year, 350 events over 11 days attracted more than 125,000 visitors from across the U.S. and 19 countries around the world. Next year, Modernism Week will run from Feb. 14 to 24.
     In Chicago, it’s called the Wright Plus Housewalk.
     The annual event celebrates architecture, design, Frank Lloyd Wright’s innovative vision and the talents of his fellow architects. It offers interior tours of private homes and public buildings designed by Wright and his contemporaries. Next year’s Wright Plus will be held on May 18.
In Napier, New Zealand, it’s the Hawke’s Bay’s Art Deco Festival.
     Every February, tourists from around the world attend an annual Art Deco weekend festival. Many dress up in 1930s costumes to celebrate the city’s extensive Art Deco architecture, which was constructed in just three years after most of the city was destroyed in an earthquake in 1931.
While Vancouver may not have Palm Spring’s climate, homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright or a distinctive architecture quickly erected following an earthquake, (at least not yet), we do have a distinctive West Coast style of architecture worthy of celebration.
     To draw attention to this wonderful resource, the West Vancouver Art Museum has, for the past 13 years, organized an annual tour of mid-century and other modern homes.
     In July, I joined some 250 people, including a professor of architecture from Chicago and visitors from Seattle and Victoria, on the museum’s annual Modern Home Tour.
     Promotional literature invited participants to explore spectacular mid-century and contemporary West Coast-style homes perched on the rocky slopes of West Vancouver. This was most definitely not an overstatement.
     The five unique homes selected for this year’s tour included architectural features that define the best of West Coast Modernism.
   

The Hemingway Residence, designed by architect Brian Hemingway for his family in 1977, is literally perched on top of a steep granite cliff, offering a clear view of the Pacific Ocean. With over 200 steps leading to the front door, this is no ordinary home.
     It is a remarkable example of the vertical arrangement of interior spaces, typical of the designs created by several West Coast modernist architects from the late 1960s to 1970s.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Hemingway, who just happened to be in town from Victoria, joined some of us for the tour of his former home. Many agreed his house was much more than a home, and almost like a chapel or temple — a place for contemplation.
     Nearby was a simple post-and-beam house. Designed by architect Bob Lewis in 1959, it was saved from the wrecking ball after the owner peeled back decades of paint and drywall to expose its original materials. With the help of local design firm, Design Particles, owner Negar Ghorashi created a stunning home that might best be described as an example of West Coast-Persian fusion.

     One of the most popular homes on the tour was a sleek, single-level residence designed by New Zealand architect Mark Ritchie for his family, marvelous in its simplicity and modesty. The architects on the tour, myself included, particularly liked the way a double-car garage door was concealed within the front facade, making it almost invisible.

The Red Residence was included in this year’s West Vancouver Art Museum home tour. (Credit: Ema Peters) [PNG Merlin Archive] PNG

The theme of this year’s tour was “inside-outside living”, something best exemplified by The Red Residence, designed by McLeod Bovell and completed in 2016. Located on a steeply sloping mountainside lot overlooking Dundarave, its expansive, floor-to-ceiling sliding windows and doors completely disappear to open up a panoramic view of the ocean.

A large covered deck with a sunken seating area and outside kitchen further blur the division between inside and outside.

      Also on the tour was an Arthur Erickson-designed home, the LaCas residence, located within Montiverdi Estates, a community of 20 spectacular single-family detached homes on a seven-acre site, with landscaping by renowned landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander. The 1979 home was an inspired substitution for another home — the Smith Residence, designed by Erickson and Geoffrey Massey for influential Canadian painter Gordon Smith — that turned out to be unavailable for viewing.
     At a gathering of participants following the tour, I could not help but think this annual tour should be expanded into something like Palm Spring’s Modernism Week and other international architectural festivals. I could envision the West Coast Modern Home tour as a major tourism event for both West Vancouver and the region, and it seems that others have had a similar idea.
     Over the past year, West Vancouver’s new manager of economic development Stephen Mikicich, along with other officials and council, have been developing an economic development plan for the district, intended to transform West Vancouver from what some regard as a sleepy bedroom suburb into a more vibrant resilient community.
     A key element of the plan is a tourism strategy that leverages the district’s natural and cultural assets including its “pedigree as the birthplace of West Coast Modern architecture”.
     West Vancouver has much to offer when it comes to architectural tourism. But so do Vancouver and many other parts of our region.
     While Stanley Park and Granville Island are reportedly the regions’ two top tourism destinations, in years to come, hopefully many more visitors will come to see and appreciate our architecture, both from the past and the present.