Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History by Eve Lazarus Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020 $32.95 / 9781551528298 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * As a lifelong Vancouverite, arguably the Canadian equivalent of a native New Yorker, I’m habituated to the abundant charms of Vancouver, which doubtless prevents me from noticing a veritable panoply of…
Read more #985 Open scenery, hidden history
House Shumiatcher by Leslie Van Duzer, photography by Michael Perlmutter Novato, California: ORO Editions, and Vancouver: UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture [SALA] / West Coast Modern House Series, 2014 $24.94 (U.S.) / 9781941806616 * Friedman House by Richard Cavell, photography by Michael Perlmutter Novato, California: ORO Editions, and Vancouver: UBC School of Architecture…
Read more #942 West Coast Organic
McIntyre House by Sherry McKay, with a preface by Douglas Coupland and photography by Michael Perlmutter Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2020, and Vancouver: UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture [SALA] / West Coast Modern House Series $24.95 (US) / 9781943532940 Reviewed by Martin Segger * As Leslie Van Duzer — series editor of UBC…
Read more #917 McIntyre’s West Coast Modern
Hand Drawn Vancouver: Sketches of the City’s Neighbourhoods, Buildings, and People by Emma Fitzgerald Toronto: Penguin Random House (Appetite), 2020 $24.95 / 9780147531209 Reviewed by Jennifer Chutter * Emma Fitzgerald’s Hand Drawn Vancouver weaves together her autobiographical accounts of growing up in Vancouver with visual depictions of personally meaningful places around the city. After spending…
Read more #905 Fresh and whimsical Vancouver
Craigdarroch: The Story of Dunsmuir Castle by Terry Reksten Victoria: Orca Books, 2019 (first published by Orca Books, 1987; reprinted 1994, 1997, and 2000) $16.95 / 9781459823846 Reviewed by Matthew Downey * This new printing of the late Terry Reksten’s Craigdarroch: The Story of Dunsmuir Castle provides to a new generation of readers a short…
Read more #873 A castle for all Victorians
The Birdcages: British Columbia’s First Legislative Buildings, 1859-1957 by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor Victoria: FriesenPress, 2020 $16.99 / 9781525547041 Reviewed by Martin Segger * This handsome, generously illustrated volume is essentially the biography of a building. Building biographies, multi-disciplinary by nature and ranging across the architectural, social , and cultural historical genres, are all too rare…
Read more #807 North Pacific Imperial Gothic
The Way Home: How a Naïve Single Mom Built her House in the Forest by Terry Faubert Powell River: Steller Books, 2019 $15.00 / 9781096448211 The Way Home is available online through Amazon and Indigo, plus in Powell River at Coles and Ecoessentials, and in Lund at Pollen Sweaters. Terry Faubert can be contacted at…
Read more #779 The building goddess of Lund
Design for Living: West Coast Modern Homes Revisited by Darrin Morrison, Greg Bellerby, Kiriko Watanabe, Adele Weder, Barry Downs, Hilary Letwin, and Alan Bell West Vancouver: West Vancouver Art Museum, 2019 (catalogue of an exhibition held at the West Vancouver Art Museum, 2019) $30.00 / 9781989236024 Reviewed by Martin Segger * This is the book…
Read more #769 Celebrating West Coast Modern
Jennifer Chutter reviews 2 books: 111 Places in Vancouver That You Must Not Miss by Dave Doroghy and Graeme Menzies Cologne and New York: Emons Verlag, 2019 $26.90 / 9783740804947 * The Vancouver Sketchbook: Lush Landscapes, Vibrant Streetscapes, Soaring Skyline by T.K. Justin Ng Vancouver: Whitecap, 2019 $29.95 / 9781770503250 * …
Read more #767 The Vancouver patchwork
Eppich House II: The Story of an Arthur Erickson Masterwork by Greg Bellerby, with an introduction by Michelangelo Sabatino Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2019 $45.00 / 9781773270470 Reviewed by Martin Segger * This is the second volume in a series edited by Geoffrey Erickson and authorized by the Erickson family. (The first was Francisco Kirpacz:…
Read more #555 Arthur Erickson’s steel house
Vancouverism by Larry Beasley, with a prologue by Frances Bula Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019 $39.95 / 9780774890311 Reviewed by Michael Kluckner * Anyone looking for evidence of Vancouver’s essential weirdness could consider these two events: in 2005, a mayor named Sam Sullivan personally trademarked the term “EcoDensity” for a style of highrise development; and, five years later,…
Read more #550 From sawmills to EcoDensity
Harold Kalman reviews three books: Copp House by Adele Weder, with photography by Michael Perlmutter Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2017 $24.95 (U.S.) / 9781939621887 * Downs House II by Christopher Macdonald, with photography by Michael Perlmutter Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2016 $24.95 (U.S.) / 9781935935285 * Merrick House by Anthony Robins, with photography by Michael…
Read more #457 Long live West Coast Modern
Dunmora: The Story of a Heritage Manor House on Vancouver Island by Valerie Green Surrey: Hancock House Publishing, 2017 $59.95 / 9780888390080 Reviewed by Patrick A. Dunae * “Dunmora” is the name of an impressive Tudor Revival-style house that was built in 1922. It is located north of Victoria, on the west side of the…
Read more #434 Unto the Saanich manor born
Spaces and Places for Art: Making Art Institutions in Western Canada 1912-1990 by Anne Whitelaw Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017 $39.95 / 9780773550322 Reviewed by Martin Segger First published Nov. 16, 2018. * Geography challenges power. Anne Whitelaw has written an impressive geopolitical history of art institutions in western Canada. She demonstrates how…
Read more #425 Let them have art galleries
Tom Burrows by Scott Watson and Ian Wallace Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2018. Co-published with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery $50.00 / 9781927958889 Reviewed by Robert Amos First published September 11th, 2018 * Born in Ontario in 1940, Tom Burrows moved to Vancouver in 1960 hoping to study medicine, but instead earned a B.A….
Read more #371 Burning down the house
Smith House II by Michael Prokopow, with photography by Michael Perlmutter and a foreword by Douglas Coupland Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2018 $24.95 (U.S.) / 9781940743387 Reviewed by Harold Kalman First published Sept. 2, 2018 * Historian of architecture Hal Kalman appreciates Michael Prokopow’s Smith House II, the biography of a house in West Vancouver designed…
Read more #363 An Erickson-Massey masterpiece
Mudgirls Manifesto: Handbuilt Homes Handcrafted Lives by the Mudgirls Natural Building Collective Gabriola: New Society Publishers, 2017 $29.99 / 9780865718777 Reviewed by Kate Braid First published Aug. 14, 2018 * I was excited about being asked to review this book. In the ’70s and ’80s I spent 15 years as a Red Seal Journey(wo)man Carpenter…
Read more #343 Lasqueti mudgirls manifesto
First published March 22, 2018. Canada: Modern Architectures in History by Rhodri Windsor Liscombe and Michelangelo Sabatino London: Reaktion Books, 2016. £20.00 / 9781780236339 Reviewed by Martin Segger * This survey of Modernism in Canada is the thirteenth volume in a series of country-by-country studies of twentieth century architecture. This one has long been anticipated…
Read more #270 Starchitects, 1886 onwards
Binning House by Matthew Soules (text) and Michael Perlmutter (photography) Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2017 UBC SALA/West Coast Modern House Series $24.95 (U.S.) / 9871939621665 Reviewed by Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe First published Feb. 19, 2018 * Architecture critic Adele Weder is now trying to preserve the much-admired house that was built and designed by Bert Binning…
Read more #249 West Vancouver modern
Essay: The Mysterious and Difficult Hermann Otto Tiedemann by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor First published November 26, 2017 * In this essay written specially for The Ormsby Review, Robert (Rob) Ratcliffe Taylor provides biography of Hermann Otto Tiedemann (1821-1891), the German-born surveyor, engineer, architect, and artist. He was one of thousands attracted to Victoria by the…
Read more #211 From Prussia to Victoria