January 29, 2013

"The Mat" – Tony Osborn's unsolicited proposal for the VAG

Tony Osborn wants to start a conversation about “an opportunity to deliver Vancouver much more than a solitary museum” – the Vancouver Art Gallery – than the current proposal for the Larwill Park site:

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Mat 1

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Tony noticed a particularly interesting coincidence: a city-owned site of even larger size but much more intriguingly placed:
Mat 2

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His amply-illustrated brief – which you can find here – makes the case for siting the VAG here as the loops of the Granville Bridge are removed and the surrounding lands rebuilt:

Mat 4

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The result: spectacular.

Mat 3

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Opportunities for not just the gallery but also other city facilities as well as a bike station, cafes, theatres and an amazing public square and sculpture garden – not to mention a knock-out entrance to the downtown and the revitalization of lower Granville Street.

Check it out.

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Comments

  1. I have never liked Larwill Park as the site for the VAG but fell in love with this idea immediately! It’s a great vision and a wonderful fit!
    Thanks for sharing it with us Gordon!

  2. Very interesting idea. I find the Larwill Park plan very uncreative and just about the most boring idea ever.
    One option would be to have an open ideas competition. This would create a lot of excitement and build buy in from more people.

  3. If you think, that a building rooftopcan make “an amazing public square” and that the best “revitalization of lower Granville Street” is to put it into a man made tunnel, a la 800 Smythe style, which everyone know is a wonderfull place…then well, I guess the result can be called “spectacular”, especially when the architect didn’t forget to throw some goodies to the cyclists
    And the good point is that the building could be as well a Superstore, a casino, or an airport terminal…so I guess architecturally, it is very Vancouver ish.
    If you think, the proposal not only fails to address the streets, all the streets, but also ruin them (ruin the majestic perspective on Granville street) and fails to address the complexity of the site, more importantly the articulation of Granville and Pacific Bld, which should be offered inviting connection, to nutrure, each other, then you will be a bit less dythirambic, and may be Tim is right, the best thing to cheer about is the gold balloon poodle
    That was for the negative side.
    the positive, is obviously the site. A definitely much better option that Larwill park (even may be better than the Canada post building), the main reason is the “knock-out entrance to the downtown”, and associated bold statement the city can make on its values.
    Definitely an important site, and a great contribution for this reason, but if you want a spectacular result, architects will have lot more work to do there….
    and no I kept unmoved by the giant poddle and the promise of the bike rack…
    Ps: it is also worth to mention the unsolicited proposal of Michael Green, especially its proposal on the Granville Bridge, which can find an articulation with the proposel site by Tony Osborn.

    1. Great spaces are created by breaking the urban design “rules”. In fact, slavishly following the rules is a sure way to create a really boring city.

      1. voony is right: find me an non-street-level plaza that works. this would just be another empty windswept place like the QE plaza, the sunken and raised parts of Robson Square, that ugly space at the north end of Granville and similar 70’s monstrosities around the city. Just say no.

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