The West Coast Modern House: Vancouver Residential Architecture. Edited by Greg Bellerby with contributions from Jana Tyner and Chris MacDonald. (Figure 1 Publishing)
The West Coast Modern House charts the development of residential Vancouver architecture from the post-war period through to contemporary practice. The book features over 50 homes designed by seminal West Coast architects such as Ron Thom. Arthur Erickson, Barry Downs and Fred Hollingsworth. Bellerby, a curator and gallery director for over 30 years, spoke to the North Shore News about some of the extensive research involved in putting the collection together.
North Shore News: In West Coast Modern House you have a poster of Richard Neutra visiting Vancouver. Architect Barry Downs specifically mentions him as an early influence in the development of landscape architecture.
Greg Bellerby: When Richard Neutra lectured here in the ’40s he really exposed a lot of architects to the idea of modernism and the integration of indoor and outdoor spaces. He was definitely a big influence.
North Shore News: The Neutra poster was made by Gordon Smith. Fascinating Vancouver history in itself. What sort of research was involved in putting together West Coast Modern House?
Greg Bellerby: Basically it dealt with looking at what was published at the time about modernist houses. In particular there were maybe two or three sources that they came from. One was the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Journal and they were one of the first publications to really look at modernism. They spent a lot of attention on Vancouver and what was going on here. In the book there is an essay that was written by Ned Pratt in 1947 and it talks about contemporary architecture in British Columbia. It really sort of lays out what is West Coast architecture or the idea of the West Coast style. He cites the environment, the weather, the light, the amount of rain we get, and how to deal with that, and also the idea of the post and beam house — that really became the iconic image of West Coast houses.
This article came out in the journal and over the years there were a number of other articles that talked about the idea of post and beam and also West Coast architecture. Ron Thom wrote an essay that was published in the journal in the early ’50s. The other great source was Western Homes and Living magazine which now is just called Western Living. It was first published in 1950 and featured a lot of new, modernist homes. It did articles about them and the architects and even about the people who had commissioned these houses. It’s still publishing today in a different sort of format but a lot of those early magazines were a great source of material. House and Garden, Canadian Architect had articles as well. I also did personal interviews with Barry Downs and a couple of the photographers who took photographs at the time.
North Shore News: Where did the Gordon Smith poster come from?
Greg Bellerby: That came from a collection out at UBC from the Belkin Gallery. They have quite an extensive archive and their poster was in their collection at UBC
North Shore News: Jana Tyler’s essay deals with landscape architecture and its significance in Vancouver. That seems to have played role in the development of a West Coast esthetic.
Greg Bellerby: Landscape architecture doesn’t get a lot of publicity or space in the literature so we thought it would be interesting to include it. The idea behind the West Coast Modern House is the integration between the outdoor and the indoor and the landscape around the house was almost as important as the house itself. Richard Neutra and other people put forward this idea that you should not just plop down a house but integrate it into the landscape. Some of the early architects like Ned Pratt, Fred Hollingsworth and Ron Thom would also do the landscaping and recommend certain plantings and site the house specific to the lot. In the postwar period there wasn’t really a school of landscape architecture. There were a few people that came and started working with architects. Robillard was one of them who started offering services as a landscaper and a landscape architect. It was something that developed slowly in the postwar period but it became equally important.
North Shore News: Chris MacDonald’s essay, “The Next Modern House” specifically mentions the Smith houses and the Downs houses in the context of the development of West Coast Modernism.
Greg Bellerby: In both those examples there were two of them and so he looks at how design had changed. Arthur Erickson who designed both the Smith houses looked at both those sites very carefully. One is forested and just hovers above the landscape. The second house sort of bridged natural rock outcroppings so again the house was very much integrated into the landscape. And Barry’s houses in south Vancouver and on a cliff in West Vancouver got very different treatments but with same intent and conscientiousness about materials and how the house would function within the landscape. Chris’ idea was very much about making the comparison over time.
North Shore News: In today’s terms the houses are quite small but they are built in spectacular locations.
Greg Bellerby: Yes in Vancouver we’re very fortunate to have these spectacular sites for these houses with the beautiful outviews to English Bay or Howe Sound. In the houses that are situated in really flat spaces the gardens became the views in a sense and played an important part in the house.
North Shore News: Your introductory essay outlines the history of modernism in residential architecture. West Coast Modernism was influenced from elsewhere but developed in specific context so it was really like a homegrown, organic development.
Greg Bellerby: I did a previous book, West Coast Residential, and it looked at a mid-century modern house and a contemporary house from five cities Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and L.A. There was what I call a communication that went up and down the West Coast from Los Angeles through to Vancouver. Richard Neutra came up to lecture, Fred Hollingsworth and Ron Thom went down to the coast to San Francisco and L.A. and visited architects and brought back people. Barry Downs studied in Washington State, Arthur Erickson taught in Portland. There was a lot of influence up and down the West Coast. It really reflects a real unique West Coast style and West Coast approach to houses. Vancouver had its own particular version of that because of our accessibility to great timber, fir, cedar which was readily available and relatively cheap so that became the material whereas in southern California it was more concrete and steel. There’s a real relationship between what went on esthetically in L.A. and Vancouver.
