ROSS FREAKE | at Re:Imagine, 30 August 2007
Okanagan Architecture Finally Discovers Itself
Of Landscape, the Grand & Upscale Demand
"You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces: that is construction. Ingenuity is at work,"
said the great 20th century architect Le Corbusier.
"But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say, 'This is beautiful. That is Architecture.'"
In the 1970s cop show Kojak, Telly Savalas, who played the lollipop-sucking homicide detective, intoned at the beginning of each episode: A community gets the police force it deserves.
That's also true for architecture. If a community is not willing to demand and pay for quality and sublime work, architects and builders won't create it; if it's willing to settle for pink stucco boxes from Florida, that's what it will get.
The Parthenon in Athens, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the European cathedrals, the Taj Mahal in India, the Opera House in Sydney are more than just buildings; they make a statement about the communities that built them.
"The architecture of things reveals a structure below the surface, a hidden grain which, when it is laid bare, makes it possible to take natural foundations apart and assemble them in new arrangements," Jacob Bronowski writes in The Ascent of Man.
In De architectura, the first book written on the subject, the Roman architect Vitruvius said in the first century that a good building should have three qualities: utility, durability and beauty.
It's unlikely that many of Kelowna's early residents read Vitruvius, but that was the order of how buildings were constructed the first ones were strictly for utility; later came durability, and much later, beauty.
Emerging Okanagan Style: A Natural Turn
John Woodworth has watched Kelowna and its architecture grow since he moved here as a child in the 1920s, living and fishing at Manhattan Point. He still checks out buildings as he drives around town and is not always impressed. In his mind, one of the keys to architectural distinction in Kelowna is sensitivity to the landscape.
"Lots of houses that have been carefully tucked into hill sides and cliff faces, including my own, are quite sensitive to the Okanagan landscape."
Woodworth's house has an osprey-eye view of Okanagan Lake, clinging to the Poplar Point cliff with the tenacity of the man who designed City Hall, Kelowna Community Theatre and the KLO campus of Okanagan College. He wrote a best-selling book on architecture, as well as writing for and editing architectural magazines.
While Geby Wager lacks Woodworth's design training and background, he has the same jaundiced eye when it comes to architecture here, or the lack of it at least until now.
"I think the architecture has been dismal," said Wager, who has sold real estate here for 32 years. "It has been really bad. We joke about it on our site and call it Pandosian because there is no architecture. We have a few examples of some decent things, but I think most (developers) are still following this maximum density, cheapest building that we can put up."
He is helping change that mindset with his Woodland Hills On the Ridge development in the Mission, which last year won 34 awards, including a Gold Nugget in the United States. Each home has an unobstructed view of the lake no rooflines in front and absolute privacy. The homes and the landscaping were designed with outdoor living in mind.
"We believe Kelowna deserves better and so we are striving to improve what happens. I think every builder and developer in town has been through our site repeatedly and I think it's changing. When I drive around the city, renderings that are up for buildings that are proposed are significantly better than they have been.
"I think maybe that evolution is happening, that we're becoming sophisticated enough to recognize and want to pay for a better architecture."
Okanagan Renaissance: Beyond Utilitarianism
Like biological evolution, architecture, too, is propelled by natural selection. What works best, what gives an advantage survives and thrives, a point Kelowna city manager Ron Mattiussi has seen first hand on a daily basis.
Mattiussi first saw Kelowna while passing through and was struck by the hodge-podge nature of the buildings, but "I remember commenting to my wife: 'this is a very special place.'"
Twelve years ago, he got the job as "the planner in paradise" manager of Kelowna's planning department. He has noticed an evolution in architecture from a time when few builders used architects, to using architects from out of town with transplanted ideas that worked in Vancouver and Calgary, to local architects who have a sense of place.
"Not all buildings need to be iconic, but public buildings are symbols; they symbolize community. They're more than bricks and mortars; they are there for long time and have to be more than office space."
Mattiussi believes Kelowna is going though a renaissance, moving beyond the utilitarian approach of the 1970s and 1980s when many public buildings were constructed as cheaply as possible.
"A community gets built over time with a million decisions by hundreds of individuals. It's a work in progress and is never a finished product. Twelve years from now, people will look at Kelowna and say 'that is a special place,' the same feeling I get when I walk around Portland."
Kelowna's former planning manager thinks Kelowna has the beginning of its own architectural style.
"I think there are some good examples out there ranging from relatively modest buildings to more substantial buildings," said Mary Pynenburg, an architect and former planning director for New Westminster. "I think that the Okanagan library, Rotary Centre for the Arts, and the Lofts are good example of Okanagan architecture."
She also lists Manteo, Mission Shores, the Verve, Abbott House, Wilden and Woodland Hills as examples of an emerging Kelowna style of architecture.
She sees distinctive elements of Kelowna architecture: deep eaves to keep the hot sun off windows, the use of wood and stone, earth-tone colours, and landscaping that uses drought resistant and native plants.
"Architecture should reflect the sense of place it's in. Kelowna has a lot of distinctive aspects: rolling hills and grasslands, and it has the lake as a defining element that make it distinctive from other places.
"The exciting thing about Kelowna right now is so much is happening. We have a real opportunity to shape growth in a positive way that responds to that sense of place. I think it's important to recognize the opportunity and the challenge. We have a diamond setting, a first-class, natural setting with million-dollar views. You don't put in plastic diamonds; you make the effort to rise to the occasion."
Brent Couves thinks the Glenmore Highlands is a diamond setting with million-dollar views and that Wilden the community tucked into 2,000 acres of valleys, hillsides and ponds has risen to the occasion.
"Consumers want be able to drive down a road and say, I think there's a home up there rather than oh, my God look at the homes up there," said Wilden's marketing director.
He thinks Kelowna has acquired enough sophistication that it has reached a point of natural selection that people don't take an architectural style from elsewhere and plunk it down in this landscape and that people are willing to wait to get what they want.
"In the '80s, it was a race to get it done in 60 days, to get into something new even if it was peach vinyl. Now, we have a more sophisticated buyer with a few bucks to spend. We're also seeing that echo buyer who maybe grew up in that era and they're getting what they like."
Because most open land on the valley bottom is agricultural, builders are being forced into the hills where the more landscape-conscious builders work with nature rather than trying to dominate or destroy it.
"We're seeing a lot more natural colours going in, colours that match the landscape, a lot of stone, all blending in to complement the surroundings. That's where we're going and other developers are doing the same thing.
"I think we're a West Coast style that leans to a Craftsman look that is quite timeless. As long as we're still in hills with trees, rocks and a pond, houses will be timeless."
Moving On Up
But it isn't just single-family residences that are acquiring a distinctive Kelowna style of architecture. Kelowna is, finally, also going up. For years, until the Dolphins and Lagoons broke the floor barrier, there were only a few high rises in Kelowna; now they're changing the face of the city and the downtown, turning the core into a vibrant, people place.
It started with The Grand. Its size, boldness, grandeur and gravitas, pulled things around it, re-shaping the North End. When the library, art gallery, courthouse, Prospera Place, The Dolphins, Lagoons followed, old railway land was transformed into a cultural corridor; what was once a wasteland of Second World War housing and industrial areas now aspires to elegance and class.
But it isn't just downtown. South Pandosy is growing into a sense of itself and is reaching a new level of sophistication with Abbott House and the plans, if approved, for three residential towers, with retail and office space on the block from Groves Avenue to KLO.
That's already happening in North Glenmore, with The Conservatory finally taking form and the Verve, a trendy, cool high-rise of condos, already shaping the neighbourhood.
Former architect Randy Shier is one of four partners in the Mission Group, which built the Verve, Mission Shores and the Sheerwater.
"I think Kelowna does have its own style or styles. There are a variety of architectural languages that would be appropriate in Kelowna. I studied architecture in Southern California and I understand the difference between sunny, which is Kelowna, and rainy, which is Vancouver."
Shier, who moved to Kelowna in 2004, noticed European and Mediterranean influences in architecture, and the popularity of the Craftsman style.
"If you look at Verve as an example, it's a contemporary Craftsman. The Craftsman system goes back 100 years, but we're using familiar language in a new way."
The Mission Group is sold on Kelowna and is planning town houses in Kettle Valley and condos in more urban locations, one of which is in the Landmark Square neighbourhood.
"We have some exciting upcoming new home communities that will be different than Verve and different from each other. Architecture needs to have a sense of place; it needs to speak to the people who live there.
"I'm finding that the sophistication level here is increasing. The bar is being raised and so it should be. As a company, we spend a lot of time working on design and we want be known for building high quality and exceptional places for people to live. There's more than one style for Kelowna, but whatever language you choose, do it well or don't do it at all."
Awards Encourage Excellence
That's the same language Wager of Woodland Hills speaks the vocabulary of excellence and quality. And a little guy named Tommie is the co-founder of that new Kelowna language, that new architecture, that new sense of pride in a higher standard.
Kelowna has always had great builders and architects, but the Tommie, a regional award started in 1991 that recognizes and honours creative achievement in architectural design, outstanding construction and service to the consumer, made even more converts.
Wager had to be convinced of the value of the award. "I didn't want to enter, but my sales people convinced me. As we went through the process, I realized that it is quite legit."
He said the Tommies and the provincial Georgies have been instrumental in raising the standards and helping make the public aware of quality homes and architecture.
"Ultimately, it will provide a tool for the Canadian Home Builders Association to encourage a higher standard because once the public demands it, they can regulate who is doing work where and use it as a bit of a hammer."
Wager doesn't regulate the home designs in Woodland Hills as long as they are authentic and timeless. Some of the home designs are influenced by the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, the great American architect.
"We like Frank Lloyd Wright and it's a practical home for the Okanagan. I think we're over the hump on residential buildings. I think as people become aware of architecture and its importance, and are prepared to pay for it, developers will be more inclined to provide it. I think we'll look back in 10 years and see a significant improvement."
And see that natural selection helped develop Kelowna's very own architectural style that Kojak would have toasted with a lollipop.
"Architects may come and
Architects may go and
Never change your point of view.
When I run dry
I stop awhile and think of you."
So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright,
Simon and Garfunkel
Copyright © 2007 Ross Freake. All rights reserved.
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