Oz

We moved on to the downtown-y part of town.












I forget what the nickname was for it, or if there was one, because I couldn't stop thinking of it as The Emerald City. Apparently there was a craze for green glass at the time much of this building happened.















We stopped at a building the name of which I have also forgotten, which was incredibly ugly and looked like the fabulous futuristic dream of somebody in the 1960s. Apparently it was the first time that they used the "scissors stair" in building - the two required staircases no longer had to be at opposite ends of the building (a requirement that promoted the building of lots of long skinny buildings) but could be placed side by side, separated by a wall. If you're interested in reading more about Gordon's thoughts on the "Vancouver Style," check out this article. Sadly, I don't have a picture of the incredibly ugly building, but this is what people look like when they look at it.












The downtown buildings in Vancouver seem to be either gently decaying ugly concrete blocks from the 1960s and 70s, or green glass behemoths from the 1990s and 2000s. The buildings from each era pretty much look alike. Gordon mentioned that this is what you get when you build a lot of buildings all at once - they look kind of interchangeable.












Gordon talked about the fact that all the condo-building was getting the city nowhere near accommodating the need for housing, as Mary-Rain mentioned. That was pretty depressing...

Anyway, there's a lot of water in Vancouver, around it and in it. Planners/architects/everybody seem to have thought about Vancouver's watery nature and incorporated water features into a lot of their building.




































We stopped at a grassy knoll to admire the view to the west of the waterfront and to the east of the city rising up behind us. The building in the center was built by some famous architect, and preserved serendipitously by the city. I am grateful, because it isn't a green glass behemoth, and even if you don't like the architecture, it seems to me you've got to appreciate a little variety.











Gordon explained that there was a community center and playground built into this development. (I believe this was "Coal Harbor," but I'm not sure.) It was a little surreal, what with the wholesome frolicking children on the grass, and the skyscrapers behind.













We walked along the waterfront briefly. There's a trail for walking/biking around the perimeter of the downtown peninsula, mostly along the waterfront, that will soon be a complete loop.