The Emergence of Architectural Modernism in Victoria
Curator's statement

 

The early 1960s were transformational for Victoria. Two major projects were set to change the urban landscape.

 

The City of Victoria decided to celebrate its 1962 centenary of incorporation by constructing a civic square in the city core. Public support for the expansion of Victoria College resulted in the designation of a new site for expansion in Gordon Head and, in 1963, the designation as the province's second independent public university.

 

Centennial Square, as it came to be known, was the iconic centrepiece of a new "Overall Plan" for the city. This plan envisioned urban renewal and heritage revitalization of "Old Town" with a necklace of public parking facilities to keep the cars out of a mainly pedestrian core. On the periphery, at the city's boundaries, a series of new shopping malls would service the suburbs but return revenue to Victoria's coffers.

 

The new university would buttress Victoria's position as an educational service centre for the province, just as its Provincial Normal School and hospital-based nursing schools had done for nearly a half a century.

 

Not surprising, therefore, was the fact that the architectural imagery of these two projects would be forward looking. Centennial Square blended heritage conservation with the modern aesthetic. The university's new Gordon Head campus would celebrate the various West Coast strains of modernism in a garden landscape setting.

 

Also not surprising was the caste of personalities: politicians, planners, architects and supporters largely overlapped.

 

Victoria City Mayor Biggerstaff Wilson spearheaded both projects. The design offices of architects John Di Castri, Alan Hodgson, Robert Siddall, John Wade, Donald Wagg and landscape architect Clive Justice, along with Jack Wilkinson from the Provincial Department of Public Works, worked simultaneously on both Centennial Square and the Gordon Head campus. Roderick Clack headed up the team for the square. Robert Siddall, working with the San Francisco firm of consulting architects Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons, managed the campus project. In the Provincial Public Works department, architect and planner William Lougher-Goodey spearheaded the first Gordon Head campus concept. Andrew Cochrane, also of Public Works, finished the first campus building under provincial architect W. R. W. Curtis, completing a design project by Alan Hodgson formerly at DPW. As the two projects progressed, architect Clive Campbell joined the team in the square. Later in the decade, the offices of two Vancouver architects were to play major roles on the campus: Arthur Erickson of Erickson & Massey and Barry Downs of Downs & Archambault.

 

The storyline of this exhibition explores a set of professional and urban design relationships that link these two projects.

 

Martin Segger, Exhibition Curator, March 2011