Vancouver Voyager: Four Storey and ...

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Four Storey and ...

I was out walking and looking for photos to take when I happened upon this. This building at 901-911 Homer Street was built around 1910 and the four storey brick building is typical of commercial buildings constructed around this time.

Distinguishable features include a principal metal cornice and decorative frieze, a secondary cornice above its entrance and windows with arched lintels and coursed stoned sills.

The truly unique feature of this building is the chamfered corner which orients the entrance toward the intersection of Smithe and Homer.

In 1997 the Pinnacle International Group renovated this building as part of a new 34-storey residential tower with a four storey base to the south of the building. Howard Bingham Hill Architects designed the project.

I have to say that I like the idea of renovating existing buildings and incorporating them into needed, newer structures. That way we can retain our history, make use of existing structures and still progress as a city.

For the next building we are jumping ahead almost forty years. The Vancouver Community College or Vancouver Vocational Institute was built from 1948 to 1950.

This four-storey, squarely massed building has brick-faced end walls and ribbon like fenestration. It occupies a full city block on Pender Street across from Victory Square and was designed by lead architects of the time, Sharp Thompson Berwick and Pratt.

This was one of the first publicly funded post WWII building projects in the city and it shows how the attitude of the people was changing. Instead of relying on private apprenticeship programs to train employees now priority was being given to public funding of such training.