Architecture of Religion: Chapel at Redrooffs

The Church of His Presence is a tiny chapel near Sechelt commissioned by sea-going Missionary Canon Alan Greene. It was designed by Ron Thom in 1961 with Dick Mann while both were at Thompson Berwick and Pratt.

Still in use by a few old-timers, the chapel is perched on a rock bluff that looks out onto Welcome Pass. Greene built it as a memorial to his wife and the scattered congregation he ministered over many years by ship up and down the Sunshine Coast as part of the Columbia Coast Mission.

The simple A-frame structure is flooded with light from the largely glass enclosed end walls and a central skylight. The original solid wood doors (second photo) were replaced with plate glass ones as further funds became available to Greene after construction. Side windows at floor level provide sheltered views of ground cover from the pews, peeking out from underneath a flared roof edge. 

A relatively spacious deck leads to the front entrance and also serves as a gathering area during warmer months. 

The chapel was built by local tradespeople, with many of the materials acquired by donation. Greene himself donated the land. After construction, it was discovered that the chapel broached the neighbouring property slightly. As a suitable agreement could not be reached, it was moved so as to sit wholly on Greene's lot.

It remains a classic West Coast structure and a graceful if rough-hewn reminder of B.C.'s architectural and maritime history.

Historical Images: Anglican Archives of the Diocese of New Westminster

CoMo Screening

The Museum of Vancouver is screening Coast Modern this Sunday, November 24th at 2pm. 

Directors Gavin Froome and Michael Bernard will be in attendance for a post-screening Q+A and discussion.

The film is being shown as part of the Design Sundays at MOV, in conjunction with the Dan White exhibit, Play House: The Architecture of Daniel Evan White. 

It's a great opportunity to take in two essential West Coast documents.

Binning House News

As The Land Conservancy is now under creditor protection, it is divesting itself of some properties, including the 1941 Binning residence. 

A $1.6 million offer has been received and will be reviewed by a court-appointed monitor on November 18. Stay tuned.

West Coast Modern Home Tour

There are still a few tickets left for the self-drive option on the West Vancouver Museum's West Coast Modern Home Tour.

It's a strong group, including Ron Thom's Carmichael (shown above) and Grinnell houses, Barry Downs' own stunning 1979 residence, a recently renovated Bob Lewis design and a contemporary residence by Greg Dowling of DGBK.

The tour takes place on Saturday July 13th.

Photo: Kenneth James Dyck, urbanpictures.com, 2013

Downs + Pullan Interview

A recent North Shore Outlook article on Barry Downs and Selwyn Pullan features the two reminiscing and discussing their respective professions. A photo of them outside Pullan's studio is a nice touch.

Kim Smith and Bo Helliwell, featured as well, talk about their renovation and sympathetic addition to Downs' 1963 Rayer residence.

Daniel Evan White

Dan White is the subject of an upcoming exhibition this fall at the Museum of Vancouver. 

The show runs from October 2013-March 2014 and is guest curated by Greg Johnson and Martin Lewis with Viviane Gosselin of the Museum of Vancouver.

In the meantime, check out the tumblr site dedicated to White's architecture - primarily late modern residential with a strong linear quality and close connection to site.

White's is a unique body of work that hasn't received its due, perhaps because his career blossomed in the shadow of the initial wave of West Coast Modern architects or perhaps because of his focus on the residential sphere. 

Whatever the reason, the exhibition looks to reassess a quiet but important West Coast legacy.

Image: Lunn Residence, 1987 www.danielevanwhite.com

Melding Architecture with Landscape

Barry Downs' exhibition runs at the West Vancouver Museum from May 8-June 15th, 2013. The opening reception happens on May 14th.

It's part of a strong West Coast Modern line-up the museum is mounting through the summer and into the fall, including West Coast Points East: Ron Thom and the Allied Arts, guest curated by Adele Weder.

Both will be essential viewing for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of two of Vancouver's finest practitioners.

Boyd/McPhedran Relist

Ron Thom's Boyd/McPhedran house has been relisted in West Vancouver, well below its assessed value.

See the website for photos and information on this little gem of a house with a notable history. 

It's an opportunity to pick up a significant piece of West Coast modernism and carry on its tradition as a writer's hideaway, or artist's studio, or salon and gathering spot or...

Downs + Pullan

Read Canadian Architect's excerpt of Barry Downs' insightful essay on Selwyn Pullan. 

Selwyn's Work

Mark your calendars for a night of celebration: the launch party for Selwyn Pullan: Photographing Mid-Century West Coast Modernism on October 9, 2012. 

Published by D+M and beautifully produced by the fine folks at the West Vancouver Museum + Archives, the book features texts by Barry Downs, Adele Weder and Kiriko Watanabe. 

It's the culmination of a great deal of work (and the previous exhibition) that gives one of our richest visual archives its due.

Boyd/McPhedran Update

Here's the link to Kerry McPhedran's comprehensive site on the Boyd/McPhedran house. Photos are from Architecture Wanted.

Above and below, photos by John Bland of the living room (looking toward the kitchen showing original open shelving and pass through) and exterior.

CoMo at Vancity

Vancouver Special + 'Party For Architects' are presenting a special screening of Coast Modern at the Vancity Theatre on July 7.

Directors Gavin Froome and Mike Bernard will be in attendance.

West Vancouver Summer

The West Vancouver Museum and Archives has a busy July lined up.

The current exhibition shines a light on The New Design Gallery, the proto-contemporary art gallery started by Alvin Balkind and Abraham Rogatnick in West Vancouver in 1955. Works by many of the artists who exhibited at the NDG, including Binning, Jarvis, Balzar and Mayrs, are on display.

Also WVMA's annual West Coast Modern Home Tour is slated for July 14. Tickets for the bus tour are sold out but as of this writing spots are still available for the drive-yourself option.

The New Design Gallery exhibition runs until September 15, 2012. 

UEL Residential

The University Endowment Lands continues its evolution from a sleepy, professorial enclave spotted with pre-1940's colonial and modest mid-century housing stock, to one increasingly populated by new structures that maximize square footage and cost per square foot.

It's the now classic Vancouver paradigm of small houses on large lots that encourage demolition and rebuilding.

The list of architects who built in the area is a who's who of Vancouver's early progressive designers: Sharp + Thompson, Berwick, Pratt, Thom, Hollingsworth, Downs, McNab, Lasserre, Porter, Van Norman, Erickson, McCarter + Nairne, Semmens + Simpson and McKee.

It's a significant concentration of housing and one that is slowly being lost. Recently the Muir Residence (see below) was razed. Designed by Sharp + Thompson, Berwick, Pratt in 1951, it displayed early modernist characteristics such as strip windows, a pitched shed roof and a red brick chimney on cross axis. Other houses that have been demolished include Maslow (S+TBP), Miller (J.L. Miller), O'Connor (McNab), Mackay (Cullerne) and Mitchell (Semmens + Simpson).

There are those that remain, in varying states: S+TBP's Freeman house sits in disrepair and for sale. McKee's Ellett house is wasting away, utterly engulfed in overgrown landscaping, boarded up and awaiting eventual demolition. 

The Jones house, by RJ Thom (at S+TBP) has been sympathetically renovated and remains intact. Porter, Chard + Wisnicki's Nemetz house sits as it always has, virtually unchanged. The Gladstone (Hollingsworth) and Narod (Thom) houses still nestle on their lots, for who knows how long. Barry Downs' late modern Oberlander house still looks serenely out onto the adjacent ravine.

It's not all bad news, however, as there is good work being built by more recent generations of Vancouver architects. Bing Thom, Nick Milkovich and D'Arcy Jones are now represented in the area, providing a welcome foil to the faux heritage that predominates, and a continuation of the dialogue that was started over half a century ago.

Below: Narod, Ellett and Oberlander houses.

Thom's Work/Baker

Amongst South Granville's ever-burgeoning residential stock sits a modest, flat-roofed home with an important connection to Vancouver's architectural history.

Designed by Ron Thom in 1952, the Work/Baker house is an early example of Thom's inventive spatial explorations and a study in post and beam clarity.

The structure is sited at the north edge of a level lot, allowing for a larger combined green space on the other three sides. The landscaping is now mature and creates an almost impossible privacy on a city lot.

The original house was one and a half storeys and features a main living area defined by a grey brick hearth, cedar T + G ceilings and a staggered wall of glazing on the southern side that, moderated by overhangs, brings in light year-round.

There is a cadence to the spaces and materials that combine with details like butt-joint glass and recessed lighting to create an embracing and unified whole.

The current owners bought the house as originally built and decided to expand in the early 1980's. Thom, then practicing in the East, was asked to design the renovation. The result was an expansion on the main floor – adding a family room, entrance and storage – and the addition of a third level that includes a master bedroom suite. 

It is a fascinating case study in architectural integration to see Thom's hand on two different occasions in one building, separated by thirty years. The house is also a kind of bookend to his Vancouver residential work; the intervening years having seen many residences and much larger and more complex commissions such as Massey College, Trent University and the Shaw Theatre. 

As expected, the renovation merges almost seamlessly, retaining the same graceful planar expression and arguably improves on the original. The master suite is perched atop the house in the trees and – unusual for Thom – is suffused with light.

The Work/Baker house is now on the market and in need of a new owner to carry the torch. Given the vagaries of real estate in Vancouver, it's future is far from certain. But as an important part of the city's heritage it deserves a more secure fate than that.

Coast Modern Premiere

Coast Modern will premiere at the DOXA Festival in Vancouver on May 8, 2012.

Check out the West Coast architectural renaissance! 

Hollingsworth in North Vancouver

In what is already proving to be an active month for architecturally significant listings, add Fred Hollingsworth's 1950 Moon Residence to the list.

It is one of his Wright-influenced Neoteric designs that features a taut post and beam structure, cedar board and batten siding, copious interior plywood and red brick that defines the central living space. The house is actually two linked structures set on a 45 degree angle, giving a dynamic sense of space.

The Moon Residence is listed as a Primary Building in North Vancouver's Heritage Building Inventory and remains in stunningly pristine condition.

Mid-Century Real Estate

Check out Robert Crowe's Facebook page focusing on local Mid-Century Modern real estate.

It features a comprehensive survey of active listings across the lower mainland and an abundance of related mid-century information.

If you're in the market for a beautiful Thom-designed home that needs some love, here's his listing for the Carmichael residence.

Carmichael Residence

Ron Thom's 1957 Carmichael residence is on the market.

This is one of Thom's Wright-inspired hexagonal houses and shares a common language with the nearby Southworth and Case residences. Taken together, they show Thom's development beyond his earlier rectilinear designs.

Interior view showing brick, wood and sand-float stucco.

The material palette of concrete brick, natural wood and sand-float stucco coalesce into a series of intimately connected spaces with an embracing scale. A broad hipped roof, clerestory windows and extensive butt-joint glass add a richness to the design and draw the exterior landscaping inward.

At just 1150 sq. ft. the house is small, even by 1957 standards, but it emphasizes quality of living space rather than size, in stark contrast to current trends.

Plan from 1950's Canadian Architect article showing hexagonal grid system.

Section from 1950's Canadian Architect article.

The Carmichael residence has a trail of recognition including the Massey Medals for Architecture in 1961. It was one of two Thom-designed homes featured in the Architecture and Sculpture in Canada exhibition at the Canadian Government Pavillion during Expo 67 and is also listed in West Vancouver's Survey of Significant Architecture 1945-1975.

Carmichael Residence as shown in the 1961 Massey Medals catalogue.

In close to original condition with Thom-designed furnishings still intact, the house needs work but is listed as "mainly lot value" which is a travesty considering it's an exemplary West Coast style building by one of Canada's greatest architects.

But with a lot size of 88'x150' the business case for tearing it down and increasing the FSR through rebuilding is compelling.

However that doesn't take into account its less tangible qualities: thoughtful design, an essential connection to nature and the not inconsiderable belief in the ability of architecture to enrich the quality of life.

There is always hope of a middle ground: a sensitive restoration with an addition or a secondary building on the lot that allows the preservation of this remarkable little house.

Color photos: John Bland Canadian Architecture Archive at McGill University.

B+W photo: Selwyn Pullan