New restaurant L’Abattoir had its grand opening party this week, which means the public opening is imminent. The newly renovated space at 217 Carrall, which seats 80, is co-owned by chef Lee Cooper and Paul Grunberg, both familiar names to the Vancouver food scene. Congratulations to both! For updated information on opening day, visit labattoir.ca.
Vancouver’s Illuminares festival will be held in Gastown for the first time this year. Activities for all ages, performances by musicians, storytellers and dancers and, of course, an incredible array of lanterns, make this event one of the most popular in the city, year after year.
More information is available at the event website. A vast array of photos from previous years is on Flickr.
An excerpt from A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Vancouver is featured today at the Tyee. Adele Weder addresses Vancouver’s architectural history and rebirth, including major changes to Gastown over the last few decades.
Insertion Points – Gair Williamson Architects
cdnarchitect.com
Tevor Boddy
August 2009
A view of Williamson's own suite in the Paris Block. Photo Credit: Ed White
A small architecture firm is well-known for nimbly grafting and inserting new architectural elements into the existing urban fabric of Vancouver.
Clients turn architects from dreamers into schemers. Williamson has had a close and positive relationship with Salient Development, which is headed by the successful Robert Fung (son of the former Toronto Waterfront Commissioner of the same name), often sharing office space with the firm. Salient took more advantage of the transfer of development rights (TDR) policy than any other Vancouver developer, and now finds itself controlling nearly half the unplaced density benefits nearly a year into a city council embargo on their sale (the issue for City Hall is the mounting store of potential building density without sufficient sites to “land” it on specific locations in a developing-out downtown).
Williamson is responsible for one of the best applications of these Vancouver heritage mechanisms in his adaptive reuse and rooftop addition for Salient to the Bowman Block, part of a line of early 20th-century warehouses on Beatty Street south of West Georgia Street. Williamson’s design cut back the window-side floor plates of timber-beamed and wooden mill floors to open up two-storey lofts, with bedrooms set back to increase the sense of space, while revealing original elements of the 1906 structure–for example, the former beam seats are retained as a marker of the building’s past.
Similarly, designer and developer resisted invisibly bricking-over the line where the subtracted floor plate was excised, intending it to be left visible. In some of these loft condos, the location of the former floor plate is marked with a very contemporary steel I-beam, which also helps with seismic stiffening of the masonry shell building.
Indie style finds home in Gastown’s fashion district
Straight.com
September 3. 2009
Patty Jones
The working hand loom at the new Gentille Alouette (left); and an Ora bag from Nouvelle Nouvelle.
In Gastown’s thriving fashion district, upstart boutiques and ateliers are offering something different by design.
Indie fashion is happening, right this very minute, in Gastown. In the window of the new Dickensian-chic boutique Gentille Alouette at 227 Carrall Street, Vancouver Community College fashion grad Ben Newcombe is constructing a dress on the retro-green sewing machine. “When there’s nobody else here, I pop this up onto the table,” says owner, textile artist, and designer Eliza Lau, pointing to a kick-ass–looking hand loom tucked under it.
“Hell or high water, I was going to open my own place,” Lau tells the Straight in her atelier. Lau was a stylist and special-effects costumer in her former life. She once wove “alien animal pelts” for Stargate: Atlantis. But her textile-arts roots were nudging her. “I envisioned representing local designers, providing a workspace. I wanted people to see the art and incredible skill of dressmaking,” she says. The Gastown scene is decidedly all about that DIY ethic.
“To me, Gastown represents returning to grassroots. There’s that lovely historic feeling,” says Lau. “The shop owners are a community, everybody wants everybody to succeed.” She adds, “And I think that fashionistas are discovering Gastown is a real fashion nook.”
Anyone following the bloody quill on Gentille Alouette’s sign—homage to both that nasty children’s song and nearby Blood Alley—into the boutique can nab stunning dresses ($270 to $489) and floaty felt and silk collars ($140 to $260) by Genevieve Graham, former Obakki designer and Project Runway Canada runner-up. Also on the racks are Lau’s own repurposed-leather dresses ($148 to $375) and cavegirl-sexy lei scarves ($148 to $229), woven from recycled fur, alpaca, and other exotic scraps. “My aesthetic is very deconstructed,” she says. She brandishes a work-in-progress wenchy bustled skirt, “a Vivienne Westwood ragamuffin thing”.
It’s another planet on Water Street. Moose and beavers abound in disturbing plush. Furniture emporiums and currency exchanges have accelerated breeding programs. There’s maple syrup on tap. No, wait—that’s beer. Here, T-shirts ask questions: “Does this shirt make me look Canadian?” Eh? But there is the Water Street style vanguard: Obakki (44 Water Street), Fluevog (65 Water), Alife (350 Water), One of a Few (354 Water), and Two of a Few (356 Water).
The Woodward’s Experiment
Vancouver Magazine
September 1, 2009
Michael Harris
The Woodward's redevelopment is a massive social experiment bringing people together, regardless of income Image Credit: Christina Lanteigne
Who says East is East, West is West, and never the twain shall meet?
From his book-crammed office on the sixth floor of the Dominion Building on Hastings, Jim Green has monitored the reinvention of Woodward’s. If Woodward’s is anyone’s baby, it’s his. Beginning in 1985 (five years before the store was shuttered), Green led the community lobby for its transformation into a complex that would draw all elements of the city into one mixed-use mecca. His opening came in 2003 as the province, which owned the land, was trying to get a reticent COPE city council to sign off on the Olympic bid. When Gordon Campbell asked how he could get council’s support for the 2010 Games, Green, a COPE kingpin, gave a list. One element: “I need Woodward’s.” The deal they struck: the City bought the whole block for $5.5 million. (It was valued at four times that.) And somewhere in there, the Olympics got a new tag: “The inclusive Olympics.” Green believes the urban experiment that followed will be mimicked in other cities. “I’ve studied this for a long time,” he says, “and there’s nothing like this anywhere in the world.”
At the fractious joint between the Downtown Eastside and the posh towers to its west, architect Gregory Henriquez has designed a new kind of urban hub. In its conjoined towers are one million square feet of market and non-market homes, government and nonprofit offices, a contemporary art school for SFU, a grocery store and other retailers, and a childcare facility. On one city block, this microcosm of the city wreathes a central courtyard that has the potential of a train station. “The whole city should be mixed-use,” Henriquez says. “Anything less is a tragic mistake. Human lives are not meant to exist in compartments.”
The Vancouver International Jazz Festival is a long celebrated event in Vancouver. One not to miss. It’s BC’s largest music festival boasting over 400 concerts at 40 venues – no matter what your taste is in music, there’s something in the program for you. And, it all starts this Friday, June 26th and runs through to July 5th.
There’s shows at various venues around the city, but no doubt the Gastown event stands out to many. The Gastown Jazz component of the festival runs this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, June 27th & 28th at the Maple Tree Square Free stage.
Gastown Jazz, is a free two-day New Orleans-style street festival is back! Historic Gastown becomes an open-air party with multiple acts spread over two days. Featuring Canadian and International artists, Gastown Jazz has become a traditional destination for jazz fans and is synonymous with the opening weekend of the Festival. Two free stages bookend Water Street’s three blocks. Continuous music is performed for everyone to enjoy. Friends and families come from all over to celebrate the beginning of summer while reveling in a diverse array of musical styles. Gastown Jazz also boasts dazzling street entertainers, souvenir and CD kiosks, snacks and refreshments, as well as a wide selection of cafés, restaurants, and bistros all along Water Street.
Here’s a list of just the FREE Gastown Jazz events, and the entire Jazz Festival schedule can be found on their website. We’ll cross our fingers for good weather.
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