In central Vancouver, modernism and New Urbanism mesh

New Urban News Article with images and sidebar, 12/1/2003

Modernists have the upper hand in shaping the architecture of the city’s center, and the results fit into generally effective streetscapes.

Probably the most stunning new skyline in North America is that of downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. In the past decade, a succession of “point towers” — high-rises with thin profiles, filled mostly with rental and for-sale apartments — has shot up within walking distance of the Canadian city’s center.

Many new urbanists have an aversion to towers, seeing them as expressions of all that was anti-urban and inhumane in the ideas of early modernists like LeCorbusier. But towers may be indispensable in a region like greater Vancouver, where the population swelled by 24 percent between 1991 and 2001, putting increased pressure on a limited land supply. Since the 2001 census, the metropolitan population has surpassed 2 million, and it is expected to continue growing quickly.

The downtown core of Vancouver, which has gained roughly 38,000 residents in the past 12 years, has become an ambitious test of whether high-rise construction, architectural modernism, and new urban planning can all coalesce in a pleasing form. If this experiment succeeds — and so far, the results are encouraging — Vancouver could be North America’s biggest demonstration of New Urbanism’s ability to adopt a distinctly modern architectural expression.