69 replies to this topic

[amor de cosmos]

wicked

[UrbanRail]

... D'Ambrosio AND similar developers. I like D'Ambrosio's buildings also but I think variety is better than relying on one person's style. He isn't the only one who uses lots of light & glass.

ps. what's a BANANA?

You are right, having a variety of architectural designs is better. I am not advocating sea of glass like on Vancouver's waterfront. But those pics sure look cool.

[renthefinn]

well that narrows it down a bit. I wonder why nothing has been done about that yet. How many more task forces & studies is it going to take to get them to do something about it. How many decades ago was the current one built? Probably in the 1960s when the traffic was 1/3 of what it is today. There should be a new building with the Express, Clipper & Coho terminals & a Harbour Ferry stop all under one roof rather than all scattered as it is now. The saved space could be used for a hotel, restaurant, cafe, plaza, etc etc. Start a "draft Stew Young" movement in Victoria!


ferris wheel -- since London & shanghai each now have one, Victoria would look like a copycat. I like the Bing Thom idea better.
ogden point aquarium -- could move undersea gardens out there. arthur erickson thought it looked ugly where it is now


no & no. I don't think there should be any bridge across the harbour.



I read somewhere that the city is "waiting" (& waiting & waiting...) for the "perfect" project to come along for that parking lot in front of fort/wharf. It might have been that "who owns what in victoria" article that was in the TC a year & a half ago.

Think if we would have built the ferris wheel back then, we'd be the leaders in that sense

[Number Six]

I might be pushing the boundaries of this thread just a bit ... but I thought I'd share a couple of ill-fated plans that have collected a lot of dust over the last 98 years. This information is courtesy of a 1910 booklet promoting Victoria. Among the lengthly list of plans for 1911 and 1912 were:

1. A new hotel where the Royal B.C. Museum now stands: "The new hotel of the Grand Trunk Pacific will be directly opposite the Parliament Buildings, and south of the Empress Hotel. Grounds and buildings will cost close to a million dollars, and it will command a magnificent view of the Harbor".

2. The new Spencer block, pictured below:



Wow!

[UrbanRail]

That is a pretty impressive building.

[Ms. B. Havin]

"Wow," indeed! THAT is straight out of what Sharon Zukin describes in Point of Purchase; How Shopping Changed American Culture. Amazing. I had no idea anything like this was dreamt of by anyone in Victoria... (Of course, it is the mother of all fatscrapers, eh? :-) )

Thanks for posting this, Number Six!

[amor de cosmos]

I might be pushing the boundaries of this thread just a bit ...

hell no! it's never too late for a nice enough building!

but I thought I'd share a couple of ill-fated plans that have collected a lot of dust over the last 98 years. This information is courtesy of a 1910 booklet promoting Victoria. Among the lengthly list of plans for 1911 and 1912 were:

1. A new hotel where the Royal B.C. Museum now stands: "The new hotel of the Grand Trunk Pacific will be directly opposite the Parliament Buildings, and south of the Empress Hotel. Grounds and buildings will cost close to a million dollars, and it will command a magnificent view of the Harbor".

That would have been cool, but I think the museum works better on that corner. Do you have a pic?

2. The new Spencer block, pictured below:



Wow!

... where the McDonald's is now, between Douglas & Broad, right?

[aastra]

That building would have represented another order of scale altogether for downtown Victoria. Translation: it would have been too big.

It reminds me of the old Eaton's in downtown Winnipeg. If Victoria had continued to grow it would have made sense to start thinking that big, but since Victoria didn't continue to grow I can feel pretty good about the fact that the colossus was never built.

[Number Six]

That would have been cool, but I think the museum works better on that corner. Do you have a pic?

No, but I have started a new thread tracing the history of that corner:

http://www.vibrantvi...63493#post63493

[Rob Randall]

That is a great picture, Number Six. With your permission I'd like to use it in our "Daring Design-The Victoria That Never Was" exhibition next year.

[D.L.]

that's amazing, what a great find #6!

[Number Six]

That is a great picture, Number Six. With your permission I'd like to use it in our "Daring Design-The Victoria That Never Was" exhibition next year.

No problem at all. If you want to PM me I can provide details on the booklet it came from.

[D.L.]

I wonder if that building would have spanned the block of Broad Street or View Street. I could see that going in from Yates to View, on Broad, and the buildings where A&B Sound is now would have to get removed. Or if the building were to span View from Broad to Douglas street then the rendering doesn't show it as having a very prominent frontage on Douglas, which would have been strange.

Maybe this wasn't a very detailed plan.

[Number Six]

I wonder if that building would have spanned the block of Broad Street or View Street. I could see that going in from Yates to View, on Broad, and the buildings where A&B Sound is now would have to get removed. Or if the building were to span View from Broad to Douglas street then the rendering doesn't show it as having a very prominent frontage on Douglas, which would have been strange.

I've done a bit more research on this building. First off, the booklet this sketch came out of was produced in early 1911 and not 1910. The great fire of 1910 started in Spencer's Dept. Store on Oct. 26 and destroyed almost every building bounded by Government, Fort, Broad and Trounce Alley. To quote Derek Pethick in "Summer of Promise: Victoria 1864 - 1914":

"However, within a week the firm was doing business again in the Driard Hotel, and announced plans for buying not merely the hotel but additional property on Government Street and rebuilding bigger and better than ever.

Despite the caption my guess is that the impressive frontage of the building would have faced Government Street and have been bound by Broad, Fort and Trounce. Subsequently the city decided to push through View St to Government St (it was not a through street prior to the fire) and so perhaps this scuppered Spencer's plans and he expanded from within the Driard onto Douglas? At least this is my 'working' theory of what might have happened.

FYI, the A&B building was the home of the King Edward Hotel in 1910 (another building I've been researching). It was promoting itself heavily during this period. The 1911 booklet contains a photo of the building on Yates ... if I get a chance I'll start a new thread in the Heritage photo and post the image.

[D.L.]

ah that makes sense, so this thing would have fronted Government where the Bay department store currently is.

[aastra]

It makes me wonder...if that big building had been built, might the Driard never have been demolished?

[amor de cosmos]

Think if we would have built the ferris wheel back then, we'd be the leaders in that sense

Berlin follows London Eye with plans for giant ferris wheel

Kate Connolly in Berlin
Friday December 7, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Berlin has announced it is planning to build a giant ferris wheel, becoming the latest in a spate of cities keen to define their power, status and prosperity with a grandiose amusement ride.

<snip>

The Great Berlin Wheel will be 50 metres higher than the London Eye, built in 1999, and will even tower over China's impressive Star of Nanchang by 25 metres.

But despite German hopes that Berlin would boast the biggest wheel in the world, it faces the humiliating prospect of being dwarfed by a parallel project in Beijing, a 208 metre construction set to be ready in time for next year's Olympics.

Other big wheel projects are planned or currently being built in six Chinese cities, as well as Singapore, Dubai, Mumbai, Moscow and Orlando.

maybe it's not such a bad idea after all... I still like the Bing Thom plan better though.

edit: actually, since the ferris wheel could be over the water like the london eye, we could have both!

[gumgum]

It's been done to death I think.
Here's Manchester's London Eye:

[G-Man]

Can't we have a good old honest tower/observatory combo?

Perhaps a hundred metre likeness of Queen Victoria with a restaurant called the Tea Room in the Sky.

[Holden West]