Located near the stadium, and sporting pink/bronze coloured mirrored glass. Daring in this town of simple grey and green.
It’s the parq Vancouver casino and hotel complex.
Thanks to “guest” for the head’s-up.
And, from the parq Vancouver web site:
Sexy, playful, and full of promise.
Live life as it is meant to be lived – amongst friends with great food, extraordinary spaces and artful design. Plan a serene getaway to parq’s urban garden oasis, indulge in unique spa adventures, or dine and play at one of its exceptional restaurants or world-class casino.
- 517 Hotel Rooms in Two Hotels
- 5 Restaurants
- 3 Bars & Lounges
- Casino with Private Gaming Salons
- Spa and Fitness Gym
- 62,000 sq ft of Conference and Special Event Space
Jeez I think that looks ugly….BUT, I’m thankful it’s not another drab grey glass boring building.
I have to say, social costs of gambling aside, I do not like the aesthetics of this building. The design is cutting-edge 1986.
When I first caught a glimpse of the copper glass I just loved it. I think it’s a nice looking building.
It seems that over time there will always be faster runners, smarter people, dumber people and uglier buildings. This isn’t new. This building was butt ugly when it was first proposed and is meeting that goal remarkably.
I like a lot of what has happened under Vision. But to be honest the urban built form has mostly taken a horrible hit. City planning and development staff have not been holding developer’s feet to the fire as they should.
And you have the experience working behind the counter to make that claim? Or know even on person in the planning dept. who argues on a daily basis with developers and builders?
Councillors do not design buildings. Not even COPE. Nor do most planners. Architects do. Planners who process these developments regularly ask for better, but short of passing a law making ugly architecture illegal with jail sentences, or forming the VDP (Vancouver Design Police) at great cost, you just aren’t gonna make your uninformed critique come to life.
Actually, as a house designer. I do have experience in this area. Even houses in certain zones have to go through a rigorous design review and get the blessing of planners. It often seems they spend more time on a house than on larger and more important buildings like this monstrosity. The planners can reject ugly in some cases.
Often they are limited to architectural fit and the quality of the public realm rather than pure subjective aesthetics. Many newer buildings fail to improve the public realm at the street level – I would argue, often making it worse.
This building is just ugly – pure and simple. But worse than that it makes a mockery of the pedestrian realm creating a super-block-super-building that forces people even further around the already massive stadium by cutting off the ring plaza.
OK Ron, I take back the “uninformed critique” bit. Apologies.
It is just not well known out there just how much abuse planning and building departments receive from some developers and notoriously rude small time builders. This is common Metro-wide due to the pressures of record-level development applications, and the sheer volume of shoddy and incomplete stuff foisted on officials who are expected to drop everything and put certain applicants at the head of the very long queue. The city of Surrey has said it will require developers to go to school to learn how to make fully complete applications. They are their own worst enemies in too many cases, and the first to cast blame on municipal staff for their own mistakes.
On top of the behind-the counter yelling, staff has put up with ill-informed and highly one-sided and ideological articles in the mainstream press by Fraser Institute types constantly bleating about the “high costs” imposed by DCCs, CACs and fees, and the length of time it takes to process development submissions. As though the taxpayer should absorb the costs of the impact of development on city services.
One could write a movie script.
I quite like this building, it’s a great use of the site wedged between BC Place and One Pacific.
The copper glass is also gorgeous. It’s absolutely preferable to the typical piles of balconies coated in drab grey spandrel and seafoam green glass that have come to dominate Downtown South and Yaletown.