#mccarter & nairne

[illustratedvancouver]

Happy New Year everyone!

I have a few unpublished drafts I’m going to release in the new year, and here is the first of a short series.

This drawing was created for McCarter & Nairne Architects, and it is believed to be an unrealized window for the lobby of the Marine Building, featuring what could either be Captain Vancouver’s arrival in the Burrard Inlet in 1772, or Captain James Cook’s arrival at Nootka Sound in 1778. Aboriginal canoes can be seen at left, providing escort to the landing party. This drawing sold at Kilshaws auction in Victoria a few years ago, and sold from one member of the famous architectural firm’s family to another.

The auction made the news at the time, as seen here. In a followup story, John Mackie relays a bit more info about a man who had a hand in the construction of the Marine Building:

The beautiful lobby was largely the work of “constructive decorator” John Greed, who later worked in Hollywood. Legend has it part of the building was designed by an Australian architect whose name was forgotten. Recently, a replicate bronze osprey from the Marine Building sold at auction in Victoria for $18,000. After I wrote a story about it, reader Stuart Tarbuck emailed a transcript of an interview with architect Bob McGilvray where he relates the anonymous Australian’s name: Cheerio Brown. Apparently, Cheerio was a “less than sober fellow” who arrived in town “off a recently arrived boat.” He went to McCarter and Nairne for a job, and they put him to work on the Marine Building. When he finished, he jumped on a boat and went home.If you do an online search you can find some lovely art deco buildings in Mackay, Australia that were designed by Harold V.M. Brown, who may well be the same guy.

Here’s to all the craftsmen, anonymous and otherwise, who have helped to build the city into the metropolis it has become today.

[dominionmodern]

marine building, 355 burrard street, mccarter and nairne, 1930, vancouver, british columbia

[illustratedvancouver]

Vancouver’s unbuilt public natatorium and concert hall, English Bay (Sharp and Thompson, in conjunction with A.S. Wootton, 1920). Vancouver Archives Reference code: VPK-S98: LEG1969.09, via VanArchives. In this excellent article worth a repost, Sharon Walz writes:

Between 1916 and 1921, the Park Board Commissioners tried to build something grander at English Bay: a “natatorium”, a heated salt water swimming pool and baths for winter use.

In 1916, Commissioner W.R. Owen submitted to the Board the idea for a winter swimming facility to be built at English Bay. Park Board Engineer A.S. Wootton was charged with gathering information on the construction and operating costs of similar facilities in other cities, and in 1919 the Vancouver architecture firm of Sharp and Thompson was chosen to work with Wootton to develop a concept for a swimming pool building. On November 12, 1919, C.J. Thompson for Sharp and Thompson and A.S. Wootton jointly submitted a report to the Park Board, discussing various options for siting the new building...

In the end, the economic recession that occurred after World War I put an end to the dream of an English Bay leisure palace. The Park Board decided in 1921 that a by-law to raise the more than $75,000 estimated cost would be defeated by the voters. City Council had been resistant to the project from the beginning, and without their support it was doubly likely that appeals for funding would fail. The Board toyed with the idea of having the facility built and operated by a private company, but the few enquiries from local development companies in 1921 and 1922 came to nothing. In the end, the only significant development after 1909 that took place in English Bay was the removal of the first public bathing pavilion across the street from Alexandra Park and its replacement with the current English Bay bath house.

Sharp and Thompson weren’t the only firm to pitch the idea of a Natatorium in Vancouver. McCarter & Nairne also had a competing vision for a Natatorium, as presented by architectural illustrator Edward Thomas Osborn (courtesy of the University of Washington’s collection). I’ve actually reblogged that building before, thanks to pasttensevancouver. It was an architectural battle of the bands of sorts, or perhaps a real city rivalry. 

You see, Osborn had no doubt seen Marcus Priteca’s 1916 Crystal Pool Natatorium in Seattle in person (see The Architect, November 1916), and thus he produced this glorious rendition in colour, duly appointed in terra cotta and tile. Alas, few of Osborn’s renderings seem to have been built; he was much better at selling dreams than he was seeing his building to fruition, though to be fair, I don’t know if he was this building’s architect, or if he was primarily the illustrator.

A. S. Wootton would go on to engineer many of Vancouver's parks, and is credited for building Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park (source). Seattle’s Natatorium ceased to be a pool when it closed in the late 1930s, and though the building saw alternate use since, it was demolished in 2003. Fortunately, the terra cotta was reclaimed for a new 24-story Seattle condo tower, Cristalla at 2033 2nd Ave, Seattle. Curiously, the condo website mentions the heritage architects Weber + Thompson responsible for the conversion, but fails to mention Priteca, instead calling the building “a terra cotta façade of an Italian Renaissance building built in 1906, the Crytal Pool.”

Edit: The site has been updated, with a more appropriate description:

...The original terra cotta facades of the Crystal Pool Natatorium – a glass-domed saltwater bath house designed by renowned theatre architect Marcus Priteca – were identified as a cherished icon by the Belltown community who clamored to have them restored. Honoring this history and neighborhood context were two key driving forces in Cristalla’s design.

Our designers created a definitive backdrop to the heritage facades, using a stepped, layered palette of Italian limestone and champagne aluminum panels, in concert with a cascading composition of blue glass, evoking flowing water and reflecting the site’s original use. The Natatorium’s original dome – demolished in the 1960s – is replicated above the entrance with a steel pergola that unifies the two remaining terra cotta facades...

[illustratedvancouver]

The Main Post Office (1958) designed by McCarter Nairne & Partners, uploaded by Heritage Vancouver on Flickr earlier this year as their number one pick for their Top 10 Endangered Sites of 2012. This is followed by the ambitious concept of the day, the Main Post Office (1958) with a giant tower dissecting the building, rather resembling a mid-century modern loveseat if you ask me.

I love this post office just the way it is, and I hope they find a way to recycle it. Again, if you ask me, I think it should be a giant tech incubator / machine shop / 3d lab / studio. I don't think it would make a particularly great art gallery, but it would be an awesome production space!

[illustratedvancouver]

YMCA Building at Burrard and Barclay St by McCarter & Nairne, perspective view 1940, pencil and colour wash on illustration board. Reprinted on page 56 of Trace Magazine, July - Sept 1981. The building recently went through a complete redevelopment and is now known as The Robert Lee YMCA Building, joining forces with a 42-storey residential tower known as Patina. For those who want to read the fine print, here's the City of Vancouver rezoning report and Heritage Revitalization Agreement from 2005. The Vancouver Observer took a tour of the facilities in this 2010 article. The numbers, briefly: 

Number of units: 256 Cost of YMCA restoration: $67 million Total project cost: $250 million What I'd really like to know: cost of the original building in 1940 ??