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Peter Pratt

Modern West Coast PlacesPeter Pratt

Pratt House, 1951/2012

Pratt House, 1951/2012

Category : BC Binning, C.E. Ned Pratt, Peter Pratt, Ron Thom, Sharp & Thompson Berwick Pratt

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Today marks 40 years since closing day of Vancouve

Today marks 40 years since closing day of Vancouver's Expo 86 World's Fair. Expo is a period in our history that catalyzed a flurry of new ideas and explorations that have had a profound impact on our city's growth, urban identity, cultural landscape, and international stature. 54 participating countries, hundreds of artists, performers, and corporations created a spectacle showcasing innovations in transportation and communications, and left lasting memories for the over 22 million people who visited over the 5-month duration.

Tonight, writer and curator Jordan Strom explores some of the incredible superdimensional art and architecture at Expo 86, through the lens of four projects: "The Spectral Image" by Michael Snow, "Highway 86" by SITE / James Wines, C.N. Pavilion by Peter Cardew, and Canada Pavilion's Great Hall.

OCT 13 • 2026 | 5:00 • 7:00PM
INFORM | 50 WATER ST | VANCOUVER
DOORS 5:00PM | TALK 6:00PM

LINK IN BIO TO REGISTER

The League is grateful for the partnership and generous support of INFORM.

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#expo86 #superdimensional #artarchitecture #westcoastmodernleague #wcmlvan

Many of our cherished modernist architects were in

Many of our cherished modernist architects were involved in the conception and design of Expo 86. One such architect was Peter Cardew who took on the Canadian National (C.N.) Pavilion. In essence, Peter flipped the script on the idea of an internalized exhibition. Turned inside-out, the C.N. Pavilion invited passerby and visitors to see and to participate in the animation of the exhibits. To shelter festival-goers and the outdoor exhibits, a steel framework, evocative of 19th century railway terminals, was suspended from a gantry structure and supported by three foundation points.

Tomorrow, Jordan Strom explores the superdimensional art and architecture of Expo 86 through the lens of four projects including Peter Cardew's C.N. Pavilion.

OCT 13 • 2026 | 5:00 • 7:00PM
INFORM | 50 WATER ST | VANCOUVER
DOORS 5:00PM | TALK 6:00PM

LINK IN BIO TO REGISTER

The League is grateful for the partnership and generous support of INFORM.

[Drawings & Model] ‘Canadian National Pavilion,’ 1986. Carter, B. & Elizabeth Shotton (1996). "Peter Cardew: Ordinary Buildings." Charles H. Scott Gallery.

[C.N. Pavilion under construction] Expo 86 Communiqué (Winter 1984).

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#expo86 #superdimensional #petercardew #westcoastmodernleague #wcmlvan

Now known as Canada Place and Vancouver Convention

Now known as Canada Place and Vancouver Convention Centre East, when it opened in 1986 it served as the Canada Pavilion at Expo 86. Located on Burrard Inlet, the Canada Pavilion was outside the main Expo site on False Creek, but you could shuttle between them on the exciting and newly opened automated SkyTrain. Under its iconic sails, Canada Pavilion served as a comprehensive cultural festival complete with pop-up performances, theatres, showcases of Canadian artworks, inventions, technological discoveries, and proto-digital exhibits. High overhead in the Great Hall (pictured) hovered a flying saucer, a mysterious object and short-lived forestry aerospace vehicle.

This Tuesday, Jordan Strom explores the superdimensional art and architecture of Expo 86 through the lens of four projects including Canada Pavilion’s Great Hall. You’ll have to join us to hear more about the UFO.

OCT 13 • 2026 | 5:00 • 7:00PM
INFORM | 50 WATER ST | VANCOUVER
DOORS 5:00PM | TALK 6:00PM

LINK IN BIO TO REGISTER

The League is grateful for the partnership and generous support of INFORM.

[Image] ‘Canada Pavilion Great Hall’ 1986. Photo: Brian Stablyk.

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#expo86 #superdimensional #canadapavilion #westcoastmodernleague #wcmlvan

Whether you were at Expo 86 or not, you’ve likely

Whether you were at Expo 86 or not, you’ve likely seen images of this iconic installation. HIGHWAY 86 was one of the most sought after and engaging interventions of Vancouver’s 1986 exposition. The undulating four-lane highway, constructed of concrete and steel, emerged from False Creek rising upwards of 60ft and stretched 700ft across the fairgrounds with clear spans of up to 112ft. The structure “broke off” mid-air between the Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaducts with a cantilevered Chrysler K-Car appearing to launch off the end. On Expo’s theme of transportation and communication, the participatory public art landscape was a celebration of the history of 20th century air, land, and sea transportation, and served as part of the entry processional to the fair. With the purpose of exhibiting all means of mobility, over 200 vehicles, from jogging shoes to skateboards, bicycles, motorcycles, boats, cars, trucks, planes, helicopters, a submarine, space capsule, and a lunar rover populated the roadway. The ambiguous, monochromatic colour palette acknowledged people’s ambivalence to the future of industrial technology.

The stationary installation was overwhelmingly animated by people and if you ask anyone who was there, especially the children of Expo 86 (including yours truly), HIGHWAY 86 is one of the first memories that come to mind.

This Tuesday, Jordan Strom explores the superdimensional art and architecture of Expo 86 through the lens of four projects including HIGHWAY 86 designed by SITE | James Wines.

OCT 13 • 2026 | 5:00 • 7:00PM
INFORM | 50 WATER ST | VANCOUVER
DOORS 5:00PM | TALK 6:00PM

LINK IN BIO TO REGISTER

The League is grateful for the partnership and generous support of INFORM.

[Image] HIGHWAY ’86, EXPO ’86 Canadian World Exposition. Exhibition roadway with various transportation vehicles emerging from the harbor, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 1986. Project by SITE.

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MEET JORDAN STROM Jordan Strom is a curator and w

MEET JORDAN STROM

Jordan Strom is a curator and writer working on the unceded ancestral territories of the Coast Salish people. Over the past 25 years his curating, writing, and publishing have often examined the intersection points between ideas, art, urbanism, media and technology studies, intercultural practices, and interdisciplinary aesthetics. As Curator of Exhibitions and Collections at Surrey Art Gallery he has organized many solo and group exhibitions including In the Shadow of the Pavilions: Expo 86 and Contemporary Art this past spring. The exhibition grew out of his research as a PhD candidate in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University where, under the supervision of Dr. Laura Marks, he is writing on expanded media art in the time of North America’s last world’s fair.

On October 13, Jordan joins the League with INFORM for a talk exploring the superdimensional art and architecture at Expo 86.

OCT 13 • 2026 | 5:00 • 7:00PM
INFORM | 50 WATER ST | VANCOUVER
DOORS 5:00PM | TALK 6:00PM

LINK IN BIO

The League is grateful for the partnership and generous support of INFORM.

[Images 2-7] Steve Gairns (May 2026). Scenes from "In the Shadows of the Pavilions: Expo 86 and Contemporary Art," Surrey Art Gallery.

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#expo86 #superdimensional #artarchitecture #westcoastmodernleague #wcmlvan

Peter Pratt was an architect, mentor, and advocate

Peter Pratt was an architect, mentor, and advocate for West Coast Modernism with a deep appreciation for the wonders of the natural world. He served an esteemed, decades-long career as an architect in Vancouver and was part of a prominent family lineage with an immense and formative impact on the city’s design culture – to the core of our modernist identity.

Peter studied architecture at UBC and worked as an architect following graduation. After time in Brazil and far-reaching travels around the world, he spent much of his life working and living in Vancouver while continuing to undertake projects internationally. Later in his career, Peter embarked on a restoration and addition to the West Vancouver home he grew up in, the 1951 Pratt House designed by his father Charles (Ned) Pratt. Upholding the showcase stature of the original architecture, Peter restored the house and built a complementary adjoining residence for himself outlining a road map of sorts for the adapation of these mid-century homes for contemporary living. The project went on to be featured in the 2012 documentary film Coast Modern among numerous other publications and exhibitions and served as a center of gravity for the Pratt family.

Peter passed earlier in the summer at the age of 86. The West Coast Modern League offers our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and all those who have taken inspiration from his work and mentorship.

Peter Pratt
May 10, 1940 – July 20, 2026

LINK IN BIO for the League's full statement.

[Image] Peter Pratt. Courtesy of the Pratt family.

On October 13th, join the West Coast Modern League

On October 13th, join the West Coast Modern League with INFORM as we close out the 40th anniversary of Vancouver’s world’s fair. We will be joined by writer and curator Jordan Strom exploring the superdimensional art and architecture at Expo 86.

REGISTER TODAY!

A time of shifting political winds (the rise of right-wing governments), large-scale industrial catastrophe (Space Shuttle Challenger and Chernobyl), and ecological destruction (acid rain to clear-cut logging) the mid-1980s also ushered in a new aesthetic paradigm. Seemingly disparate forms of art, including new media installation, kinetic sculpture and architecture, large-scale 70mm cinema, and collaborative publicly engaged art rose up across Canadian cities, museums and galleries. A key convergent point for these ascending forms of image and space making was Vancouver’s 1986 world’s fair. This talk will focus on four exhibitions at Expo 86: Michael Snow’s holographic installation The Spectral Image, SITE’s Highway 86, Peter Cardew’s CN Pavilion and the Canada Pavilion’s Great Hall. In certain respects, these exhibitions foreshadowed immersive art forms that grew in number in the early decades of the new century; yet they also stand apart as distinct superdimensional spaces, that reconceptualized viewers as active participants grounded in physical reality. Taking its cue from the concept of the ‘exploded view’—a form of drawing or diagram with components of an object or device that has been slightly separated at a distance in three dimensions—this presentation will share some of the ideas and design evolutions that informed these experimental exhibits; examine some of the resonances between them; and situate these new media spaces within a broader set of artistic and architectural conversations in the 1980s and the current moment.

OCT 13 • 2026 | 5:00 • 7:00PM
INFORM | 50 WATER ST | VANCOUVER
DOORS 5:00PM | TALK 6:00PM

LINK IN BIO

The League is grateful for the partnership and generous support of INFORM.

@wcm_league
@informinteriors
.
.
.
.
.
#expo86 #superdimensional #artarchitecture #westcoastmodernleague #wcmlvan

On October 13th, join the West Coast Modern League

On October 13th, join the West Coast Modern League with INFORM as we close out the 40th anniversary of Vancouver’s world’s fair. We will be joined by writer and curator Jordan Strom exploring the superdimensional art and architecture at Expo 86.

SAVE THE DATE

A time of shifting political winds (the rise of right-wing governments), large-scale industrial catastrophe (Space Shuttle Challenger and Chernobyl), and ecological destruction (acid rain to clear-cut logging) the mid-1980s also ushered in a new aesthetic paradigm. Seemingly disparate forms of art, including new media installation, kinetic sculpture and architecture, large-scale 70mm cinema, and collaborative publicly engaged art rose up across Canadian cities, museums and galleries. A key convergent point for these ascending forms of image and space making was Vancouver’s 1986 world’s fair. This talk will focus on four exhibitions at Expo 86: Michael Snow’s holographic installation The Spectral Image, SITE’s Highway 86, Peter Cardew’s CN Pavilion and the Canada Pavilion’s Great Hall. In certain respects, these exhibitions foreshadowed immersive art forms that grew in number in the early decades of the new century; yet they also stand apart as distinct superdimensional spaces, that reconceptualized viewers as active participants grounded in physical reality. Taking its cue from the concept of the ‘exploded view’—a form of drawing or diagram with components of an object or device that has been slightly separated at a distance in three dimensions—this presentation will share some of the ideas and design evolutions that informed these experimental exhibits; examine some of the resonances between them; and situate these new media spaces within a broader set of artistic and architectural conversations in the 1980s and the current moment.

OCT 13 • 2026 | 5:00 • 7:00PM
INFORM | 50 WATER ST | VANCOUVER BC
DOORS 5:00PM | TALK 6:00PM

The League is grateful for the partnership and generous support of INFORM.

@wcm_league
@informinteriors
.
.
.
.
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#expo86 #superdimensional #artarchitecture #westcoastmodernleague #wcmlvan

Scenes from the League's "West Coast Fresh Take" w

Scenes from the League's "West Coast Fresh Take" with @and_daughters and @studioroslyn.

The west coast is a region of profound creative talent and these designers, who arrived with an impact, are continually raising the bar. In a little under a decade, &Daughters and Studio Roslyn have built impressive bodies of work defined by rigorous research, conceptual clarity, intercultural and interdisciplinary influences, an unabashed willingness to experiment, to inject a touch of humour, all the while broadening our usual notions of what defines modern west coast design. We are so grateful that you joined us to share your work.

Thank you to our community who filled the room wall-to-wall to hear from these creatives. We are inspired by your enthusiasm for local design and heartened by your support.

To Nancy & Nils, Fiona & Christian, and the entire team at @informinteriors, your exceptional generosity, partnership, and unwavering support is so appreciated.

To Becki Chan and the team at @designvanfest, thank you for your tireless dedication to celebrating Vancouver's super-charged creativity and for creating such an incredible platform to share it all with the community.

To Martin Knowles, thank you for support and contributions to documenting these moments.

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@and_daughters
@studioroslyn
@designvanfest

[Images] @mkphotomedia
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#wcmlontheboards #designvancouverfestival #DVF2026 #westcoastmodernleague #wcmlvan

2026/27 Partners & Supporters

The West Coast Modern League is based on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples – Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.
© 2013-2026 West Coast Modern League. All rights reserved.

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