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my name is Stephen McNeil and I am the curator of historical and Canadian art

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here at the art gallery of Greater Victoria uh good morning to you all thank you for coming

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um I’d like to start off with um an acknowledgment the art gallery of Greater Victoria is located on the

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traditional territories of the guancan peoples today known as the esquimo and

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Southeast Nations we extend our appreciation for the opportunity to live

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and learn on this territory I joined the art gallery of Greater Victoria recently in October of 2022

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and the first exhibition I curated for the gallery is heart of the house parked

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in the west coast modern home this panel discussion is intended to give a broader

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context to the works of art the artists and The Architects

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who feature in the exhibition we’ve brought in a group of distinguished

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speakers this morning each one an expert in aspects of modern architecture or

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design in British Columbia I want to fully admit I’m a relative newcomer to be exceed although I have

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long had an interest in this area so I suspect there are many um anecdotes in historical

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stories attached to objects that I’m hoping I can glean from working on this

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um each of our speakers here today are not only experts in their field they’re generous people and they’re generous

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with their expertise and their knowledge when I arrived at the gallery I knew that I wanted my first project to be

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centered around mid-century Garden BC and I had managed the idea to the

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gallery of creating an exhibition centered around works of art that were

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really related to West Coast modern architecture and specifically domestic architecture I wanted to Center the show

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around the idea of peering into a mid-century home seeing the things that one would have encountered in modernist

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homes here at BC the criteria for the exhibition started out with three main categories firstly

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works of art that were made by architects who are practicing artists as well as architects in this category we

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have some key works in the exhibition including two major works by BC binning

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his Jewel like printing for aesthetic idolatry the three panel piece you’ll see of the exhibition title wall and

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Majestic painting of ships shiptols Convoy underway in 1948.

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we also have the most amazing mobile that was made by Victoria architect Alan

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Hodgson for his own home here in Big West that has kindly been linked to the gallery by his wife Sheila harson and I

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want to give a special thanks to Sheila Sheila welcome to me into her home and really she has an amazing collection it

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has been very generous with the gallery over the years in the second category I wanted to

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include works of art that we could trace through provenance that as having been inside modernist houses before they came

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into our collection and this was really the area that brought me into wanting to

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work on this show because when I was coming up with the idea I was able to go through the The Collection find many

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amazing things I’ve had and through pronouns have come through owners of significant houses and this is where the

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aggv collection was really able to shine and how the bulk of the works that you’ll see when we go up to the space or

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when you visit the show relate to modern architecture at the very beginning in the title wall

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you’ll see some amazing works by Mark Toby that were collected by our family director Colin Graham and his wife

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Sylvia as well as in a large photo of their modernist house which really

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wildly eccentric and was a burning conversion I told done by John decastro

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um and the third and and really a fabulous category for the show is the works of art that were collected by and

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lived with Architects themselves within their homes and the real stars of the exhibition in

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this category um do come from the home of Alan is Sheila Hudson uh Allen was a

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prominent architecture at Victoria working on many projects including his own Unique Home in Big West and was

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responsible for the restoration of the BC Parliament buildings as well

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collection we’ve included in the exhibition a major work by Carol sabaston Marine forms of 1969 and Carol

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is here with us this morning hello Carol that was purchased by Alan and Sheila shortly after it was made

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so finding all these works and getting to know the houses was a real challenge it’s one that only happened because I

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was extending great help from experts in the field and that’s how this morning really came together

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the exhibition I should say is modest in size it’s one Gallery but it’s filled

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with treasures and I hope you’ll enjoy them so I encourage you to go out to the gallery and see the exhibition space

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after the talks this morning the show will be up until May 14th

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um and to give you the formal introduction to it the heart of the house part of the West Coast modern home

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highlights a selection of Art and objects associated with mid-century modernism and a domestic interior up in

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British Columbia it celebrates and provides a glimpse into the both Aesthetics of modern living that

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flourished in BC in the decades immediately following the second world war and without you I’m going to

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introduce uh my good friend Adele leader who’s come from Vancouver to join us

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today Adele is an award-winning architectural writer and cultural journalist her interest in Ron Tom’s

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architecture began with a master’s thesis analyzing the design approach of Tom’s Mentor artist BC Benning you’ll

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see works in the show since then she is author and co-authored several books of West Coast architecture she was the

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curator for the exhibition Ron Tom and the Allied Arts which toured across Canada and she’s the founding director

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of the West Coast modern league and a member of The Advisory board for the UBC School of Architecture

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that tell us going to speak to us today on the work of architect Ron Tom and I would like to point out that Adele’s

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recent biography of bronton is an excellent book and stocked in the shop

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so please do check it out foreign

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[Applause] Vancouver Island was important to Ron

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and Victoria he designed the BC electric building that’s in Victoria as well as

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the Mayhew house and uh this biography that was recently

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published I’d actually been working on it for 10 years uh not continuously full-time but it took that long to sort

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of tease out information from about more than 100 people that knew him worked

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with him were his clients his family members two odd six kids lots of

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colleagues Barry downs and others I talked to many many times and uh you

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know one thing I had to ask myself and you know could ask yourself too is does

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it matter the life of an architect the personal as well as the professional life you know how he

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um his family his siblings his mother his father you know we’re used to

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biographies of movie stars and writers we think their life stories are

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important um this is yeah with his he’s like I

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learned that was a John dukasti studied piano before architecture so did Ron Tom

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and uh does it matter well when I did Deep dive into Ron’s work I saw a

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musical imagery in it and then he switched from piano in his mid-teens to

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studying art he never had an architectural education and I think that

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if you get to know Ron’s work and the Artistry of it you think that matters too that’s very important and uh this

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actually isn’t in a book but this is a a picture of him during his art school days because his classmate and best

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friend at the Vancouver School of Art was Don Jarvis and you’ll see Don’s beautiful painting at least one of them

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I noticed uh probably more in the show and they had this like their their work

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with their painting was very different very few of bronze words survived because he gave up painting for

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architecture but they had this sort of this sort of ethos that was very you

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know intuitive it wasn’t it wasn’t rationalist it wasn’t really um formal it was it was just very

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organic and this is Ron’s teachers at

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Art School um BC bidding in the house that they designed and I found out that what

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Benning that taught Iran was very important to his architecture does Benny

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who persuaded Ron to go to architecture school otherwise his other teacher Jack

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scheibolt wanted Ron to be a patriot actually wrote Jeff wrote an article in

9:27

Canadian architect but Ron was you know in a senior year saying Ron Tom and and I mean several other of his classmates

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these are the future artists that are going to matter in Canadian art history you know so it’s quite remarkable he

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could have been a success at either field but it’s like he took his art talent and his art education and he he

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um he turned into architecture this is actually BC bidding’s own house where Ron was invited and spent a lot of time

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and where he met Richard Neutra who also influenced him because BC bidding brought Neutra to Vancouver three times

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to speak and he stayed at the bidding house and met the young Architects like Arthur episode

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um and uh you know I’ve got this this is Ron’s first boss in architecture Ned

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Pratt uh Ron designed that beautiful um glass screen you see in the um the

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wall pop uh on the right but Ned designed the house and I showed this

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because um it shows you the Artistry this Ned trade University Toronto architecture

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school as an architect um Ron this this is a house Iran

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designed at the same year that Ned designed that other house one’s design you know by U of T

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architecture grad which at that time was heavy on engineering and this is what happens when you get an architect like

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Ron John who trains as an artist and obviously you see the debt to Frank Lloyd Wright uh he I have no evidence in

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all my research that he physically traveled to tell yes and to meet right but I do have evidence proof in the

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arcad said BC bidding uh taught architectural design to run some and

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others and showed slides of falling water and lots of other Frank Lloyd Wright works

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and then the fact that his uh he drew he you know even later into his career he

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was always drawing even when the computer started taking over uh uh a mechanical pencils he he drew freehand

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and he always do beautiful and my research my my thought process my

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analysis I I I strongly believe that the actual ability and the willfulness to

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draw an architectural design changes how you make architecture it makes it more Humane it makes it more

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organic and this is this is a floor like the the more closer to the working

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drawings of one of his houses and he uses Frank Lloyd Wright’s honeycomb grits so 60 90 grid after the angles

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instead of a graph paper like conventional like how how sick are we all of just Square rooms you know just

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boring conventional apartments or in conventional houses and uh Ron loved the

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using this Frank Lloyd Wright hexagonal grid because it made houses so

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interesting this is the the built form of that plan you see it’s called the Carmichael house it’s in west Vancouver

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it’s still there it’s been lovingly restored by a wonderful couple uh and uh that’s actually a contemporary

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photo of the door I don’t think much of it or not but don’t tell him that mess up and that’s a vintage original shot by

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Selwyn Poland of the door in situ uh what you see is not only Artistry but

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craft Ron was so uh focused on Craft and that again comes I believe from an art

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education where it’s Hands-On you’re taught painting you’re taught drawing you’re taught sculpture you think

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differently than someone who goes to an engineering based architecture school

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this is a contemporary shot of the house as it is now and just like um you know some of the other Architects to received

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from the West Coast you know to you know to bury into the landscape to to not

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Lord over the landscape that was very much part of the West Coast water movement is to defer to the landscape

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and this is the Doda house one of those early clients we did lose I redoedic but Morton dodic is still alive and living

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in the house to this day lovingly maintained uh I think they’re the only

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surviving original clients um and it’s um you see this um in the

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way that he treats the courtyard of things little things like just the way the tiles are jogged he could never do a

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straight Square Courtyard or anything else he always had to jog at you know

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you know to sort of evoke nature because again squares are so machine-like and he

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did not like to live in a machine like house he did not like to design machine Like Houses

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and there he is just working with clients even after he became famous famous for Designing Massey College

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Champlain uh College Trent University Shaw Festival theater BC electric

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building in Vancouver lots of big huge institutional buildings but I’m focusing on his houses because you know that’s

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the theme of the day and the exhibition but I do have these shots of him with clients because uh Dennis and Adele case

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because he always thought it was so important to visit the site to talk to

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the builders to the Craftsman to talk to the clients to be really Hands-On and that was unusual then and now for uh you

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know the head of a firm the top you know fancy sought after architect

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and this seems to be here okay there we go okay and this is uh

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just some coverage of his own experimental house and western homes of living you know he he’s his clients tend

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to be more affluent and then his own house was very very tiny you know thread bears made with plywood uh and uh so

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he’s kind of like a martyr but it was a bit like Jonas Salk you know how he injected the polio vaccine into his own

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son and Iran Tom experimented with housing in his own family

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um and uh it’s really cool looking but it was freezing and he had like he had

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plywood walls and a concrete floor when you know now it’s so well on guard but London was just crazy and they didn’t

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have the kind of insulation and materials to make it work properly and but in the article that uh you know the

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the reporter interviews Chris tomlin’s wife there and you know she says it’s a joy to living and uh easy to maintain

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and I interviewed Chris Tom when she was 95 living on Hornby Island and I showed her that article in those words and she

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said what crap [Laughter] [Music]

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so this is the kind of house you would design for clients who had money like this cost thirty five thousand dollars

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in you know 1960 dollars which is an extraordinary sum it’s a small house though all the money is invested in in

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making beautiful and dramatic because it’s three bedrooms or you know three kids and uh that’s what you need but the

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other interesting thing I found this is called the forest house it’s still in West Bend but it’s in danger there’s

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don’t even go there it’s it’s a nightmare uh this is the interior shot of um by someone pulling up the forest

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house you just saw and on the right you know I was working when I was researching these I said you know this

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something looks similar like yeah and uh on the right is it uh painting you did

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in 1947 of his you know of Chris Thomas first wife had been

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married a couple of years and she was miserable and lonely and North Vancouver she had to drop out of art school and

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and she was cut off from her friends you can really see that in the painting you know and

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um she but it’s so that that’s sort of the emotional that’s the social biography that comes through in the book

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it’s it’s not just a history of one man it’s a history of all of us you know of our society of our parents or

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grandparents of Canada um and the the this new world this great

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world where all these new houses were going in the suburbs you know the women sometimes got lost in the pros so I tell

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this story but but it’s an architecture story too but and what’s interesting formulaically or formalistically is

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because it his same approach to Art you know the centrifugal design if you look

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on the right sideway paintings the heavy heavy lines that he liked to use you

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know and the brush Strokes he he did that in his architecture too I don’t

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know if you can see um in the ceiling he plastered it so it looks like paint brush strokes and the

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way he did his art is opposite of Arthur Erickson I’m sure most of you you know have an idea of Arthur Epson works it’s

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huge Open Spaces it always looks like it’s ready for a party for 100 people

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Ron was an introvert he was the opposite personality type of Arthur and he he

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always made his houses for himself and for his clients as for cozy small

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Gatherings and so I said you know the the life story matters you know it’s

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kind of like the the person is reflected in their work and just like it with

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writers and and other um uh kinds of cultural creators and so so it’s just

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those strong organizing lines and the centrifugal composition I thought we’re

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correlated and that’s magical just I got to show you once like this is my one

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institutional shot I’ll show uh and it’s just you could not not that’s an artist

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who created that the use of color and it’s so homey too even though it’s a big dining room for you know a college

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uh Champlain College the ceiling on the right and then a little charcoal ceiling I took that phone shot myself on the

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left and the Sunshine Coast you know big and small the same care the same artisanship no matter what the budget no

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matter what the size Paul Merrick X threw in a shot of Paul Merrick because he was his Protege and his Heir Apparent

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he dressed like him that this is Young Paul America he’s still here you he’s here in Victoria now and he’s done so

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much great work uh locally and uh here’s uh the other institution is a drawing by

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Bob McIntyre a Paul’s work at Trent University Ron did the master plan and did she I’m playing but he um Paul was

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the main designer about a library in the back and the ferian bridge and Paul went to UBC architecture school but he had

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the he has the mind and soul of an artist and you can see it in like the fit the bridge you see there

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and here’s uh the Ron Tom this is the second last shot of him and his Toronto

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home just to see he still tried to bring the West Coast he kept driving he couldn’t find a place to design his own

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home in Toronto because there’s no sights in Gerardo said there’s no nature and he kept driving and driving and

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driving I said I gotta find a psych gotta find a site and finally he ended up in Scarborough if you know Toronto is

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way way up in eastern it to say yes finally the Scarborough Buffs you know it’s just like 30 miles from anywhere uh

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but he said that’s my site so we built this site at his house there and uh you

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can tell it’s got the West Coast sensibility he brought the West Coast with him to Toronto when he moved there

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and uh and uh yeah I never let you know sadly he had to sell it for financial

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reasons but you just you can take the boy out of the West Coast he yeah right he can take the West Coast out of the

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boy and I just wanted to end with a shot when he started his career he’s just you

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know finished art school and he designed to then built his own house on the left in the back is Jack uh Doug said well

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Jack’s brother who is his uh who designed uh the house for his best

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friend’s uh uh Molly and Bruno bobek so that’s their house uh behind him and I

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just love this shot he’s you know young and idealistic and and uh just sitting there

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on North Shore that doesn’t look like that anymore and you just need a small house and a lot of Hope and I just I

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hope we can take away even if we can’t save all the West Coast houses we have

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to keep the idealism and and what we can take away is the primordial values of

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art artisanship caring knowing what’s valuable which is a huge big rooms it’s

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not Granite counters it’s it’s care and love and and you know trying to make

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something to bring joy to your family so thank you for listening

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[Applause] so thank you very much Adele that was

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excellent and that brings me to introducing Alan Collier Alan is a collector researcher

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and guest curator specialized in mid-century craft and design in Canada

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since beginning with Furniture in the mid-1980s his collection is grown to include Studio Ceramics fabric dinner

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wire radios and other household goods designed in Canada as well as bandwood

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chairs dinnerware Cutlery graphics and drapery material designed abroad for 35

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years he has like pieces to exhibitions across the country and served as guest curator for exhibitions in Victoria

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Vancouver Winnipeg and Montreal his most recent exhibitions include the

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modern eye and craft to design in Canada at the art gallery of Greater Victoria in 2011 Streamlight modern at the UVic

23:23

galleries in 2013 life with a claim pottery and sculpture by Janet Helder

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Grove here at the art gallery Victoria 2017 and most recently modern in the

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making post-warcraft and design of British Columbia held at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2020.

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um Allen has recently contributed to the ceramic marks registry as the craft Council of BC and written an article on

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designer Peter cotton for ornament and Magazine and there are some great Pieces by Peter in the exhibition so I

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encourage you to go up and have a look after this and without further Ado I will pass the mic on to Allen

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as uh it was introduced I’ve been into this now for quite a long time since the

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mid 80s and during that period of assembled a great deal of you know

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resource material and uh but the idea came up to give a talk on on Furniture

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Design of BC I uh scrambled around in my files and my hope is I find lots of good

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pictures of the furniture that you see in the exhibition in situated in people’s houses now I have to say that

24:37

some ditches are very good quality and others have been taken from that that resource the western homes and Living

24:43

magazine so I’m hoping some of those will show up clearly for especially people standing in the back

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um basically the slideshow I’m presenting talks about two major design firms that

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were in Vancouver in Victoria the first one that was Morrison Bush it was a partnership of Earl Morrison and Robin

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Bush and the second firm was Peter cotton also known to some people as

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Perpetual furniture so Peter had run a shop in the late in

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the mid 50s through 1952 to 1954 the old Perpetual furniture and I have set the

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the kind of brackets or the the beginning end of my talk from 1948 to

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1954. uh 1948 would be the basically the

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first year of the Peter cotton structure appeared on the market Peter was a an advocate for the uh the establishment of

25:41

an architecture school at UBC in 1945 and the school actually came to

25:50

existence in 1946 and for some reason I

25:55

think he failed his supplemental examination but he did not get into our projector School in the first year and

26:01

started in 1947. well while he was at the University he took industrial design

26:07

courses which were being offered in universities across the country and around 1948 started producing

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furniture that he would sell to friends interested in getting something new and modern

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um he closed his shop in 1954. so his career really sort of sets the the

26:27

timeline from 1948 to 54. now around the same time there was a firm who started

26:33

in Victoria around 1950 called Morrison Bush uh it was Earl Morrison and Robin

26:39

Bush um Earl Morrison had studied Aeronautical Engineering in California

26:45

and that established a woodworking business in Victoria in the late 40s he

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teamed up with Robin Bush around 1950 and that firm existed uh in 19 until

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1953 when Robin Bush moved to Vancouver to carry on the design firm under a new

27:01

name Robin Robert Bush and Associates in Vancouver so that explains the timeline

27:10

whoops um I just wanted to to show just for people

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who may not have a sense of the difference or what what Roman Bush’s furniture look like Earl Morrison’s

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furniture look like compared to say the furniture Peter cotton they both worked in Iron

27:28

steel rod and Angling and this is a picture showing the uh the

27:34

show window of standard furniture around 1953. but I think it’s a good example of

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though they’re working in one place um and that’s why

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the second picture is kind of an interesting one uh Peter cotton sold

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Furniture across the country but was represented by Morgan’s department store in Toronto I’m assuming and this is a

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picture of virtually every piece that he produced uh in in the periods in 1948-54

28:07

but it brings up the question no one could be probably did not send us

28:12

Furniture Toronto or Montreal and probably assembled the photograph in Vancouver or Victoria and uh from

28:19

Vancouver sent the photograph to Morgan’s and then probably along with a

28:25

few samples of pieces that you could actually sell I would be very surprised if he would send the costumes breaking

28:32

what it was send the entire collection to Toronto in the hopes of selling a few pieces but again it’s probably the best

28:39

photograph I have showing the entire line that he produced in that time period

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and you’ll see quite a few of these pieces are in the exhibition and that’s what I’m trying to do is just restrict

28:50

these these uh context photographs to pieces that are actually in the exhibition

28:58

now I’ve pulled out a couple of quotes I actually had an interview with uh Rob with the Earl Morrison in 1988 in

29:05

preparation for an exhibition and I will read it to you so the people at the back encirculate an idea of what he was what

29:12

he was thinking about when he started his firm in the early 50s

29:18

the reason for my bench for my Venture into Furniture design and manufacture was when it had come through the war

29:24

period when it seemed all Furniture Design and manufactured was borax waterfall water I’ll explain that

29:31

terminal it just wasn’t possible to purchase furniture with a good scale clean detail

29:37

and manufactured with materials Hardwoods and metals designed to show the materials natural beauty

29:44

now the first the word borax means borax became a sort of jurisive term for furniture that was being produced in the

29:50

30s and 40s modernistic might be another word crafts cheap and there are many

29:59

different ways to wear it had been used but it was a derisive term uh focused on

30:06

some of the designs that were coming out of the 1930s another thing I also find very interesting is that

30:12

his mentioned of of showing the natural beauty of materials well this was you

30:18

know an important feature of the early modernist in the turn of the century uh

30:24

that turned her back on uh you know an elaborate decoration and focused instead

30:30

on in architecture and in design focused on the actual materials themselves

30:40

now at the time that um these two firms were in operation the

30:45

federal government was involved in supporting design mainly through the National Gallery of Canada

30:51

and coming out of that where it was a major group that was promoted to design

30:56

it had been farmed through a group that started at the National Gallery all the national industrial design Council

31:03

and they sponsored a number of different uh initiatives the first of these was

31:10

the design index in 1949 to the late 50s they opened a design center in Ottawa in

31:17

1952 that lasted until the 60s and then they opened subsequent centers in

31:22

Montreal and Toronto The Institute of Design Awards program that both Peter cotton and uh

31:30

Morrison Bush were involved in awaiting many awards in

31:35

the early 50s because of the design index and the

31:41

awareness that the National Gallery had of design in Canada some of their work was featured in The Blind Tree in LA in

31:48

1954 and again in 1957. um some of the work was shown in don’t

31:55

miss magazine because the federal government fit aroused by other governments what Canadian design was

32:02

although they could point to examples that were in a registry called the design index the final thing that I wanted to mention

32:09

was that there was an initiative by the forest companies in BC to build a show

32:15

House in Toronto called the Toronto’s and the program has started in 1952 and

32:22

then it was white house and then expanded in 1954 to include 10 houses

32:27

built across the country in which furniture from the design index was shown

32:34

here are two sample sheets from the design index the design index

32:39

Incorporated logging trucks tea kettles dinnerware fabric carpets whole range of

32:47

things that that this group deemed was good design

32:53

you’ll see a buffet that’s very much like the one on the left and Peter Cotton’s uh spring back chair is also in

33:00

the exhibitions these are pictures of the design center in 1952 and again in 1954 and you can

33:10

see uh on the top picture there’s a side table of Earl Morrisons in the

33:15

background and in the right hand picture there’s a spring back chairs and dining table by Peter cotton and the City

33:23

by Earl Morrison and Robin Bush and then the lug lamb which is in the exhibition

33:29

today over in the far corner

33:35

another thing that it’s on Saturday they held an exhibition on

33:42

the idea of furniture modern furniture being light and how it created space in

33:47

a modern home a lot of people were moving into small houses of you know 100 000 square feet and

33:54

um you know what they’re advising is that people take on furniture lies on the right and you can notice in the far

34:00

right hand side there’s a BC binning the basic work with BC bidding and in the

34:06

far Corner a tripod lamp by uh Peter cotton

34:12

but the idea was that you could create space in a small room by

34:18

reducing the bulk of the furniture in the room

34:25

this these Pages this is a cover and page from uh The Design Awards booklet

34:31

that were put out sorry in 1953 and lasted till about 1960. in 1960 they

34:38

closed the design center and some of the programs in

34:44

Ottawa and Open Standards in Toronto and Montreal so again you’ll see uh

34:51

I think the side table on the bottom is in the execution

34:56

another thing that the government was able to do is to collect some of the best examples of Canadian design and

35:01

show it in The Blanche reality and uh just centered right is a rusted Chair by

35:09

Earl Morrison and the far corner you can see the tripod lamp by Peter cotton and in the center of the

35:16

picture dining table by Robin bush

35:22

here’s a page from the domus magazine I mentioned September 1952 showing Peter

35:29

Cotton’s glass top coffee table here’s a picture of the 1952 uh Trend

35:37

coats in Toronto which I visited apparently it was torn down recently but the people who bought it it was built by

35:44

the forest industry they bought it certainly after the exhibition was over but the idea was to host that a western

35:50

BC design host with furniture from across the country so you can see the

35:57

spring back chair and dining table by uh Peter cotton into the foreground an easy

36:04

chair and a coffee table and then on the far left there’s the uh

36:09

Garden lands that’s in the exhibition and it’s set to you by Earl Morrison or

36:15

Robin bush [Music] now coming under that there’s a new

36:21

Student Union building being built in the University of Toronto and people that were putting the building together

36:27

actually went to the trend house and had a look at the furniture and decided to put in an order for Peter Cotton’s

36:33

straight back chair I heard the Importer group of 200 of them this picture shows

36:39

others in the background so that may be quite true but somewhere around Toronto there’s a collection of these things

36:44

lurking around

36:49

foreign

36:57

photographs I went through this house in the 90s

37:02

The Simpsons the family of the parents some since we’re no longer around but I think Barry Simpson who is the son who’s

37:09

an architect showed me the house I think he was living at the end of the time and I know the when the West Vancouver had

37:15

started their house tours I was really shocked to see that this house was not even on a tour and I wondered what

37:21

what’s going on here well it got demolished so I guess I saw it four or

37:27

five years before it came down but these pitches are by Graham Warrington and he kindly lent to me by Greg Simpson the

37:34

son of the architect so on the right of course you see the Marston Bush side chairs and table

37:45

and the coffee table looks very much like the one that Peter cotton designed but they apparently came came into this

37:51

design independently so this um this shows a I think it was a kind of a

38:00

I can’t remember exactly what it was but it was a passageway a room really and um

38:07

the mural by John Kerner extended right through from that room and right out into the patio and uh at that time when

38:14

I had to look at it it was starting to get deteriorate this is a shame it’s a fantastic journal and it just extends

38:21

right through the glass door right under the garden so this picture shows the uh the Simmons

38:28

residents uh The Firm of course Douglas Simpson’s firm was Simmons and Simpson and um the Salmons too also are very

38:36

firm supporters are Robin Bush’s furniture and the furniture was laced in fact throughout the house and that’s

38:44

actually Robin Bush standing by the fireplace with his wife in one of his uh designs and um this is Salmon’s

38:51

presumably on the left and right here is a an ashtray that Peter Fonda designed and it started to Market through

38:59

uh Robert Bush Associates when he stopped his Perpetual furniture shop in

39:05

1954 and there are some of the other examples of Robert Bush Aero Morrison’s Furniture in the house

39:14

now this uh show the day residents it’s in um uh obey on Lincoln Avenue I think

39:21

it’s still there it’s been changed radically changed I think on the outside anyway but I bought furniture for Mrs

39:29

day for a couple of exhibitions in the 80s and early 90s and I went through the

39:34

hook several times and these pictures appeared in western homes of living there’s a sideboard on the right and uh

39:42

dining chair and table on the left picture

39:48

um this is another nice little house that was designed by Alan Lester in in

39:54

association with the owners the owner was a Mr Roland Brown who is a interior

40:00

decorator at Standard Furniture so he had access to all the bars and Fish

40:06

Furniture that the store sold uh dining table and chairs and then the

40:11

cabinet is basically one like the one in the exhibition but it’s just wall dining and they took the legs off and they they

40:17

were scattered around the house in various rooms

40:22

now one firm I didn’t mention and just because it it didn’t seem to be an

40:28

outfit that was interested in modern design they produced the in the early 50s a series of these heavy-handed sort

40:35

of multi cultures and cultures and Ottomans and that sort of thing that we’re popular at the time it was a

40:43

custom upholstery in the early 50s and then they started producing a line of furniture that was sold through eatons

40:49

and and that’s a big company but this you notice the one on the right

40:55

is the one that’s in the exhibition uh I don’t imagine there are very many of these produced this was a real departure from the work

41:03

they were normally doing produced probably very briefly in the

41:09

mid 50s starting in 1953.

41:14

and here it is in the lafon residence it was a Robert McKee design an

41:19

architecture I really like a lot uh we did a number of quite fantastic buildings around Vancouver including the

41:26

uh it was the Granville Chapel of 46th and Granville and a number of other beautiful houses in west Vancouver and

41:33

in Coquitlam but this was the Lafond residence on 34th Avenue and it’s it’s

41:38

been demolished as well maybe above the only two to three chairs

41:44

that were ever purchased who knows now as far as a small house is concerned

41:52

this is an 880 square foot house the king residence designed by a young

41:57

architect Arne king and the article that appeared in West forms of living is all

42:02

about making a small house seeing big a heavy light Furniture so there’s spring

42:08

bacterium dining table on the left by Peter cotton and a round coffee table in the rain

42:15

this other photo shows a a armchair designed by Peter cotton and

42:22

his collaborator Alfred Staples on the left and then a Legoland in the far

42:27

right this is the Lawrence residence designed

42:32

by John Woodward West Vancouver showing the spring back chairs and dining table

42:40

I think that’s about it of course

42:49

thank you very much Alan that was great our next speaker Martin Seger Martin is

42:56

a retired academic and Museum director and will be well known to many of you from his former position as director of

43:02

art galleries and collections at the University of Victoria as well as Adjunct professor at the department of

43:08

history and art at UVic Martin has authored several books on Victoria’s historic architecture more recently he

43:16

curated a series of exhibitions on Victoria’s Rich Heritage of modernist architecture Martin now coordinates a

43:23

Community Network for the listing of Victoria as a UNESCO world heritage site and Martin is going

43:31

to speak to us today on John decastery at the Circle architecture of the modern

43:36

movement in Victoria [Applause]

43:42

um first of all it’s an introduction to the interview Sunday at the show I’m drawing from our

43:50

fairly new African University of Victoria to assembly

43:58

to assemble what we accept to assemble what we’re calling the architectural

44:04

archives the Pacific Northwest so the images are going to you’re going to see here are pretty much drawn from

44:11

that collection and I’m going to feature some architectural rewinds the second point is with Alan you see

44:19

inside so this is a little tour through the outside of houses and you will

44:25

I’m going to look at uh maybe what I’ll call some of the threads that leave

44:31

themselves through and modernism as it appeared in Victoria influences that is coming mainly from

44:40

Europe and the west coast of the United States but you will detect a bias in my

44:47

conversation probably I I guess in today’s products I call myself a

44:52

critical regionalist I’m a great believer that architecture should fit his setting

44:58

so you’re not going to find a lot of enthusiasm on my part for what I call

45:03

algorithm boxes that are being inserted into neighborhoods like Fernwood and Fairfield at this moment

45:10

that given um I think there is a distinctive thread in the architecture of Victorian in

45:18

general going back into the 19th century and

45:25

um the modernist certainly the early modernist work here by a group of

45:31

Architects who are very a fairly close cluster as a matter of fact in those

45:36

roots uh probably won’t supplies you um the merging of the American and

45:42

English arts and crafts movement that expressed itself here in Victoria to the work of Brad Marie Francis Wilson

45:49

radnoring and Simon McClure which you see represented here in the former government house report burned down

45:56

designed by randburg and McClure together and the critical thing I would

46:01

draw your point of draw your attention to here is how architecture merges with

46:06

landscape I subtitled to show the disappear in the house and the book up in the middle of night but my goodness

46:13

despairing where did that come from and I thought if you go into Fort Rod Hill

46:18

there anything they talk about it there’s the

46:23

disappearing guns anyway yes

46:29

so and here you have it the two streams come into Victoria in this case

46:34

represented by McClure’s work um world war in the Rockland house where he’s

46:41

obviously referencing Franklin right and Rob Hall house wrote three Weasley house

46:47

just over here in Rockland and then down

46:53

there down down the East Garden in the middle of the Robert Hall house in Fairfield

46:58

um see if any boys eating clean lines from England

47:04

and um Franklin Wright American organic organic architecture

47:10

you should call it where we have uh Wright introduces the idea of of architecture emerging from the landscape

47:18

here in the coast of all the water bear run is a great example but telling us and rest the pope which would fit also

47:25

and in prep for a couple of slides later on

47:31

Victoria’s connection with Frank Lloyd Wright’s twofold directly first of all

47:37

um Bradbury’s son John became an architect and headed up until actually about 10

47:44

years ago the Italian West Fellowship in Scottsdale located at tally Essence so

47:52

referee in a way they’re done and uh John de castry on finishing his

48:00

architectural studies made a tour literally throughout the

48:05

United States in the six-month tour of Frank Lloyd Wright and standing Works

48:10

along the way he stopped in Italian talked to Frank Lloyd Wright

48:17

um the European thread Bauhaus modern

48:22

um because the boy being probably the most iconic house that’s known from uh

48:28

Dakota Museum I choose core Museum of the group in critical Museum was the last section of a practicing

48:34

architecture than he was a publicist and Mr probzio that we pretty much owe

48:40

the promotion of the modern aesthetic in the

48:45

1920s and 30s literally throughout the world through magazines that he edited and

48:51

and published and finally just a reference because it’s often brought up by local

48:59

architects of the 50s and 60s that I actually interviewed formally and their

49:04

reference to Scandinavian and Scandinavian modern and I think you know having seen some balance slides you know

49:11

the reference there would also be sort of the Scandinavian furniture coming into Victoria which I’m sure influenced

49:17

Peter cotton and others and here you have uh nowhere else I was experimental house

49:25

that you just got uh youth Skyla never heard you said

49:32

actually in Finland and you can see a little bit of this so in Victoria comes to Victoria first of

49:40

all really in a major way through the work of Percy London James of James’s brother was a was a sometime partner of

49:49

Sam McClure and James himself was a

49:59

and then later this practice going into the 40s this is the John’s house

50:05

recently quite lovingly historian at least on the street side in uh you know

50:12

bay and it was triggered by a trip of piercing his daughter to England where

50:19

they actually saw modernism promoted at the idea of Home exhibition show in 1934

50:25

and it was one of the main feature exhibitions was that a whole kind of

50:32

suburb being developed in the modern style modern style

50:38

um just out at levels and just outside London video Park in the house from

50:43

there on the road and finally um California in two or three ways very

50:49

influential I show Richard neutra’s work which was well

50:56

publicized in the day and here you get a totally different landscape that houses

51:01

buildings as you can see how they emerge and grow out of materials and context

51:07

and the topography above the landscape and um

51:12

uh you know John Wayne briefly worked with lecture so

51:18

um so big bang 1951.

51:24

um sure but um the net Prime rantone

51:30

working here in this case to build a house for the mayhu family important uh

51:35

family in town Elsa making the sculpture was a member of that family and this was

51:41

inserted into it was right on the coastline in Uplands and if you read the newspapers of the day there was in the

51:48

air well I didn’t see people from bathrooms whatever right they came pretty close to it

51:53

pretty close to an apocalypse why are we having some farm buildings but

52:04

um so there you go and uh if you look at it today it merges on the land side into

52:12

opens into a beautiful Rhododendron and a natural

52:17

and on the water slides as you can see to these Gary Oak Meadows saying the

52:24

plan of how it works within its garden and

52:29

um oh no this I don’t have a client sorry we’ve gone to the next one so the other

52:36

major influence I don’t think that I think this is underrated these people have been underrated in many ways we’re

52:43

still been adding imminence um Don Evans and

52:50

um well actually and Bernardi being involved in setting

52:55

up the news School of environmental design at the University of California Berkeley

53:01

and also running a quite a quite a large powerful design and Architectural design

53:09

from looking at buildings all over the world they specialized in University campuses among other things so they were

53:15

run out to designing Vic and remain the external to that designers over a period of about 40 years and there was a

53:22

constant back and forth the people went down to visit their office but more than that they insisted that the actual

53:30

buildings not be designed by them the by local Architects or they had Fairly tight control over what happened and

53:36

they insisted that the university landscape be dominant and become a part of the campus and the buildings be

53:42

secondary to to it so you had this kind of push in the local market here you

53:48

have the Redwood house by Christopher Nani Evans with the Landscaping by Lawrence Halpern and Halpern also did

53:55

the fundamental [Music] um campus Garden

54:01

designed for for you Vic and they’ll let you can see cows inserted into that

54:06

landscape so the introduction of the West Coast style

54:14

um I saw that in the Mayu house and here’s the mayor house and I’m sure you can get your vocabulary and what you

54:20

need to go around and uh appreciate the West Coast style a post and bean house

54:26

as you can see very simple straightforward construction which is revealed on the interior integration

54:32

with landscape provision for automobile very important coming up in the 1950s

54:38

bringing light into the house from all directions from the windows wall to ceiling

54:44

exterior envelope Windows sun shades and then

54:49

this what’s called orthogonal and functional massing so the house is designed to accommodate those various

54:55

functions with a distinctive parts of it usually

55:01

on axis respect in the landscape and carried

55:09

into a more generic kind of architecture here I’m talking putting up a house in The

55:15

Rock was beautifully restored recently by the current of another Jones that’s 1958 it’s just down the road here

55:23

um underneath it I said show Hollingsworth and downs very Downs again

55:30

designing buildings and on campus but um also working on Trump too

55:40

Publications like this one building rooms with our ceilings showing how you

55:46

could integrate the gardens into the house through decks and trailers and

55:52

along the way consuming a lot of British Columbia Lumber which is of course it was promoting this kind of thing

55:58

[Music] a cast of characters and I won’t go through them all but this is the group

56:04

that pretty much worked well together sometimes intentions sometimes very collaboratively here the

56:12

groups the one where the metal working on two projects together in the early

56:18

50s um late 50s early 60s

56:24

[Music] UVic campus and Centennial Square and I’ll pick up on tourism I think two

56:32

or three of these just John decree now watching the John Wayne Senator buildings another it was today

56:39

was a huge amount of housing happening in Victoria right after the war demobilization of the Canadian Army

56:47

Russia immigrants of all kinds and they need to build housing the Canadian

56:53

housing Enterprise Canada which became cmhc CMC

56:59

and uh three or four extensive subdivisions took that excited speaking

57:05

to fully built out one um

57:10

get the number of houses out there was about 120 or so of these small Bungalows

57:16

deemed um compatible West Coast climate and and

57:23

conditions so John Wayne first of all so John comes he’s British trained and he’s

57:30

here designing a a new shop front for um

57:37

oh my goodness [Music]

57:43

yes and we take over an existing building and he gives them a choice you see of a traditional shock print and a

57:51

modern shotgun so you can improve upgrade finally range modified traditional

57:57

Finance by the steel frame but when you get done away and the under

58:06

Castro also John just designed a Woodshed behind the house

58:11

um John Wayne did the house and here it is it’s really at the billion to a government

58:16

foreign [Music]

58:30

purposely secondary to the garden landscape setting and um what’s an

58:36

interesting thing about this house was designed on the 4×8 module

58:42

uh because of course plywood the plywood sheets being the new building

58:50

material which came in both my eight sections

58:58

um we mentioned already you’ll see uh as Stephen mentioned some some of um led by

59:07

Sheila and we’ve just acquired Alan’s art um office archive in the middle of

59:13

digitizing it but I’ll show you two of his houses here including the one to the lower right which is Sheila and Ellen’s

59:21

house which is built on the corner of a city lot and includes well about half a

59:27

lot into as it Cascades down through a rocky landscape which has become their

59:32

their garden and the house is literally in addition to that um do that

59:38

topography and you can see the foreign residents of the design done the same principles which brings us to John de

59:45

Castro and I was going to show a few to castry

59:50

examples just because it was probably for a while

59:56

building more houses one of the senior architects of the city than anybody else and also because of radical design

1:00:04

approach fueled of course by indirectly in the influence of

1:00:13

frankly right he directly has said because his actual Mentor was the

1:00:18

University of Oklahoma dean of School architecture view scoff Goff was

1:00:24

known for his Fantastical award so I’ll show you one in shortly but um

1:00:30

with John’s archive we actually managed to also acquire a large

1:00:39

portfolio of goth drawings which John had brought with him from from Oklahoma

1:00:44

and then we can see from that inspired enough reviews so you know a lot of

1:00:49

cedar landscape drives the design all those elements we looked at so far with John

1:00:56

really hit the fast track was with his Trent house that one showed him earlier

1:01:01

one of the other Trent houses this the penthouse program was designed to promote Canadian

1:01:09

architecture along that Canadian materials basically wood and this house

1:01:15

as you can see the design between cash has been slightly large but beautifully

1:01:21

preserved in the uh upper Richmond

1:01:27

area and the set again is as you can see it’s a Pavilion in the garden which captures views and Vistas across the

1:01:33

landscape to aren’t scared for it to come out and it was Well published and this is from the panther that provided

1:01:39

the trenth house designs and there’s the interior and you can see some cut mask for for did you maybe but uh

1:01:48

certainly scandalating okay better sorry

1:01:53

and so here we have John now in various um of is there any designs I’ll show you

1:01:59

the the plants just because we have them some of these were actually not billed especially how we went about fitting the

1:02:07

building to the landscape and these um kind of flying bunkers

1:02:14

extended wooden beams or Hallmark and used them in a number of his uh designs

1:02:20

from two three of these houses I’ll just show you quickly the dunsway residence of 1951 and early on the idea of organic

1:02:28

high in his mind at the time this one obviously based on uh seashell and there you see an image of

1:02:35

the house survives although you can hardly recognizing through a lot of 10 Mile point

1:02:40

yeah and the Smith Valentine house out on Gulfstream road again I’ve got a radical

1:02:46

piece of design design work made for his Forest backdrop which has since grown up

1:02:52

around it and again um beautifully restored too in the last couple of years

1:02:58

and there’s if you can get your mind around good luck you know because as you can

1:03:05

see a very complicated special mind that John brought to his uh

1:03:10

through his work [Music] and the watch residents now um to be

1:03:17

seen in its Gary Oak cluster that has grown up around it but here is sailing above the um

1:03:24

uh Rocky landscape of the southern end of

1:03:29

Uplands and again in the prime to the right gives you some idea how old you

1:03:35

stink from here probably more very variety of this and

1:03:41

this thread goes right way through up to you know almost modern times we lost

1:03:48

Roger Smith um two four years ago and uh but his houses

1:03:55

survived at Mary’s architecture survived but you don’t see it because Roger would love to bury his houses here you can see

1:04:02

a design um I try to take photographs of the city here so it goes all possible with

1:04:07

photograph as you can see how it Cascades down the slope just outside the office on the north side

1:04:14

and I’m here in this area of two of the five corners building on corner of

1:04:20

Fairfield and [Music] um

1:04:28

um steps back from the road as you can see vessels nestled into the bundalloid

1:04:33

character you know character Fairfield you hardly see it and yet this major

1:04:38

piece of retail and then the Ravine I call it the bean house I don’t know if it has another name it’s just I’m John

1:04:44

Crescent and almost underneath the castle you drive by four or five times you

1:04:50

don’t see it and then oh yeah yeah there it is and drops away you park the car

1:04:57

and you see the whole house and it’s behind the grass there you see so

1:05:03

um through staff final final project we’ll look at by John the castry and

1:05:10

um promoting our collection and there you have groups

1:05:15

Bruce Goff with his spiral house which is actually built and is included in the

1:05:21

uh in the portfolio and then Windsor up leaving here it was

1:05:27

a an artist American artist who settled here for a while at our gallery and John building a house on Salisbury Island and

1:05:34

there’s John’s house to the right and wizard lives about his castle is in Oklahoma

1:05:42

and here I’ll show you yeah just through a series of plans

1:05:49

Sherry Jones design and you have a floor plan for the house and just go up

1:05:55

through it and there we go back to where we started

1:06:05

[Applause]

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