Modern West Coast Places is an ongoing survey of significant and influential modern architecture, landscape architecture, and public artworks located primarily across the southern coastal areas of British Columbia and into the interior regions of the province. The inventory takes the mid-century modernist period of the Greater Vancouver region as its point of departure, a time when the west coast of Canada was fertile ground for experimentation and innovation in the pioneering design principles that would become known as West Coast Modernism. This architectural expression of modernism, more appropriately responsive to the domestic lifestyles, culture, rugged natural terrain, resources, and rainforest climate of Canada’s west coast, was first recognized in the construction of the 1941 B.C. Binning House, and continues to play a prominent role in contemporary practice while adapting to modern lifestyles and the increasing pressures of development and climate change.
Discover the places and people that transformed the design culture of Canada’s westernmost metropolitan region into a hub for creative innovation and explore the work of designers who are carrying forward these strong traditions of west coast-inspired design. All photographs by Steve Gairns, unless otherwise noted.
