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Unbuilt Victoria
Unbuilt Victoria celebrates the city that is, and laments the city that could have been. For most people, resident and visitor alike, Victoria, British Columbia, is a time capsule of Victorian and Edwardian buildings. From a modest fur-trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company it grew to be the province’s major trading centre. Then the selection of Vancouver as the terminus of the transcontinental railway in the 1880s, followed by a smallpox epidemic that closed the port in the 1890s, resulted in decline. Victoria succeeded in reinventing itself as a tourist destination, based on the concept of nostalgia for all things English, stunning scenery, and investment opportunities. In the modernizing boom after the Second World War attempts were made to move the city’s built environment into the mainstream, but the prospect of Victoria’s becoming like any other North American city did not win public approval. Unbuilt Victoria examines some of the architectural plans that were proposed but rejected. That some of them were ever dreamed of will probably amaze, that others never made it might well be a matter of regret.
Canada in the Frame
Canada in the Frame explores a photographic collection held at the British Library that offers a unique view of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Canada. The collection, which contains in excess of 4,500 images, taken between 1895 and 1923, covers a dynamic period in Canada’s national history and provides a variety of views of its landscapes, developing urban areas and peoples. Colonial Copyright Law was the driver by which these photographs were acquired; unmediated by curators, but rather by the eye of the photographer who created the image, they showcase a grass-roots view of Canada during its early history as a Confederation. Canada in the Frame describes this little-...
The Spencer Mansion
Built in 1889 and now home to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Spencer Mansion is a magnificent building with a rich and layered history. With detailed research, historian and author Robert Ratcliffe Taylor describes the original appearance of the house, designed by William Ridgway Wilson for Alexander Green and his family, as well as its inhabitants over the decades. Also known as Gyppeswyk, after the village in England where Green wed Theophila Rainer, the house is more commonly referred to as the Spencer Mansion, after later owners David and Emma Spencer. The book also chronicles the brief period when the residence served as BC's Government House and concludes with the story of how the house came to function as an art gallery. A unique book, The Spencer Mansionshowcases a true gem of Victoria's architecture and history.
Inventing Stanley Park
In early December 2006, a powerful windstorm ripped through Vancouver’s Stanley Park. The storm transformed the city’s most treasured landmark into a tangle of splintered trees, and shattered a decades-old vision of the park as timeless virgin wilderness. In Inventing Stanley Park, Sean Kheraj traces how the tension between popular expectations of idealized nature and the volatility of complex ecosystems helped transform the landscape of one of the world’s most famous urban parks. This beautifully illustrated book not only depicts the natural and cultural forces that shaped the park’s landscape, it also examines the roots of our complex relationship with nature.
The Land of Heart's Delight
"Just how, and why, did Vancouver Island get onto the map? How was knowledge of our immediate geography acquired and recorded? With 130 maps, dating between 1593 and 1915, this cartographic history tells the story of how Vancouver Island and the surrounding area came to be mapped. The book shows local cartographic milestones, marking progress in our knowledge through the island's rich--although comparatively short--recorded history. However, the maps, by themselves and without context, cannot tell the whole story. The accompanying text reveals the motives, constraints, agendas, and intrigues that underpin their making."--Publisher's description.
Long Beach Wild
"Longtime resident Adrienne Mason uses her intimate knowledge of Long Beach--that spectacular sweep of sand along the west coast of Vancouver Island--to explore the region's rich natural and cultural history. Including rarely seen archival photographs and contemporary nature photography, this is a vivid, multi-faceted portrait of a dramatic part of the world"--Page 4 of cover.
The Law of the Land
Greg Taylor traces the spread of the Torrens system, from its arrival in the far-flung outpost of 1860s Victoria, British Columbia, right up to twenty-first century Ontario.
Building the West
This award-winning second edition shares the stories, discovers the aspirations, and celebrates the accomplishments of early architects in British Columbia.
Unbuilt Calgary
Unbuilt Calgary is a survey of projects proposed but not built that were situated at critical times in Calgary's development; projects that indicate the city's ambitions through its first 100 years. It looks back to ideas and schemes that could have changed the shape of this vibrant city.
Between Heaven and Balmoral
In 1860, Cary Castle was built by George Hunter Cary in Victoria, the bustling Gold Rush capital of Vancouver Island. Cary was the brilliant “Boy Attorney-General,” unethical, unpopular and mentally disturbed—one of the colony’s vivid early characters. In 1865 Governor Arthur Kennedy forced the parsimonious Legislative Assembly to purchase the mansion as Vancouver Island’s Government House. After 1871, it became the vice-regal residence of the new province of British Columbia which it remained until it burned down in 1899. Defectively built and uncomfortable to live in, prone to drafts, fires and water leakage, it nevertheless reflected the character and heritage of Victoria and pl...
