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495 W Georgia St, Vancouver, BC V6B 1Y0 Mid-century postal buildings Occupying an entire city block in Vancouver’s downtown core, the currently decommissioned General Post Office was designed by John McCarter & George Nairne and constructed between 1952-1958. It’s the city’s biggest, boldest and perhaps most distinguished mid-century modern structure still standing, so naturally it has no protective status and its Read more...
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Mid-century modern furniture Billed as Vancouver’s largest mid-century & Danish modern, vintage and contemporary furniture showroom, this place has a lot going for it including a great selection of new and vintage pieces in immaculate condition. Scandinavian designs by Arne Jacobsen, Finn Juhl and Hans Olsen are featured alongside mid-century classics by Charles & Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen and George Nelson. Read more...
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Mid-century furniture & collectibles Permanently Closed, May, 2020 What happens when a movie set decorator and a certified antique Appraiser open a shop? You get Filmgo Sales, one of the most unique vintage and collectible stores you’ll likely ever set foot in. Part consignment showroom, part clearing house for Hollywood North’s film and TV productions, FilmGo Sales carries a large and Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings When called upon to design a new downtown office building in the early 1960s, rather than go full-on high-rise, architect Gerald Hamilton designed a more intimate 8-story complex; a cluster of three towers (1 low and 2 mid-rise) artfully finished in white marble resting on green arched columns above a raised courtyard. He adorned nice minimalist embellishments on Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings Wanting to create a functional space that would house a downtown electrical substation as well as double as public art, BC Electric’s chief in the early 1950s, Edward “Dal” Grauer, commissioned architect Ned Pratt and artist BC Binning to make it so. The result was a stunning 3-story rectangular concrete box which boasted a street-front facade of Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings The Canadian Pacific Telecommunications Centre (currently occupied by Allstream) was the first mid-century modern structure to go up in Vancouver’s Historic Gastown, a district better known for its classical turn-of-the-century architecture. Designed by Francis Donaldson in 1968, the CP building utilized many of the New Formalist axioms such as an elevated profile, pristine columns and smooth, white, precast Read more...
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Mid-century vintage fashion Community Thrift & Vintage in historic Gastown is actually comprised of two stores; their Unisex location at 11 West Hastings Street (see map), and The Frocke Shoppe for ladies wear, around the corner at 311 Carrall Street. Both shops carry a modest selection of nice vintage clothing & accessories from the 1940s to the 1990s, and although Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings On the north side of West Hastings Street’s 1100 block, downtown, just past the Guinness Tower, sit three mid-century buildings constructed in the 1960s-70s by developer R.C. “Dick” Baxter. Known at the time as Columbia Centre, Baxter’s business complex boasted restaurants, offices, a hotel and was once located on prime waterfront property until Coal Harbour’s shoreline was Read more...
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Contemporary mid-century furniture Custom made-to-order retro-inspired chairs, TV stands and sideboards is what you’ll find at Carte Blanche Furniture, a Canadian manufacturer whose line of mid-century contemporary designs can be found in limited quantities at retailers The Living Lab in North Vancouver and Wire Home Furnishings in Richmond. Carte Blanche’s retailers deal mostly in contemporary designs that will likely leave most Read more...
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West coast modernist houses Following the completion of the Lions Gate Bridge by Monsarrat & Pratley in 1937 – which linked Vancouver to the North Shore – residential construction in the Capilano Highlands and surrounding environs began in earnest and continued through the 1950s and 60s when the area saw a boom in West Coast modern post & beam and ranch Read more...
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Mid-century Danish Modern If you like Scandinavian mid-century modern then you’ll definitely want to visit By Design Modern, Western Canada’s largest purveyor of vintage Danish Modern furniture. Beautifully restored sofas, tables, chairs, cabinets, desks and more by prolific and award winning designers like Arne Jacobsen, Jens Risom and Finn Juhl are all personally sourced in Denmark on regular buying trips so you know what Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings Designed by CBK Van Norman in 1955, the Burrard Building was the first office high rise to go up in downtown Vancouver using new post-war modernist design and building techniques… at least on its trendy Miesian exterior. The interior holds a more traditional, less open floor plan, which the B.C. Electric/Hydro building improved upon when it went up the following Read more...
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Vintage mid-century fashion Boasting 3,000 sq. feet of retail space filled with an assortment of vintage wear, Bohemia Gallery’s mid-century collection can be found upstairs in “The Loft” where guys can choose from retro rat pack style suit jackets, ties and Aloha shirts while girls can find the perfect pill box hat to wear with their Bohemian Gallery swing coat. Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings Designed by Percy Underwood and completed in 1961, the Vancouver Parks Board offices are comprised of three low lying linked buildings finished with natural stone, Douglas fir and clerestory windows. Its split level interior boasts beautiful and well preserved wood paneling, custom designed lighting fixtures and vintage furniture, all designed by Underwood. Celebrated for its naturalistic approach Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings/art Located at Queen Elizabeth Park, the Bloedel Conservatory’s triodetic dome consists of over 1400 acrylic bubbles and an aluminum frame supported by a Brutalist concrete perimeter; the first of its kind in Canada and all very futuristic when it opened to the public in 1969. Its designers, Underwood, McKinley, Cameron, Wilson and Smith, structural engineers Thorson & Read more...
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Mid-century modern buildings & art Located along Vancouver’s downtown Burrard Street corridor, the Bentall Centre holds a bank pavilion and four towers (housing established businesses and law offices) which were constructed between 1965 – 1981. Bentall One (1967) and Bentall Two (1969) were designed by Frank Musson and Charles Bentall using New Formalist principals that boast graceful precast white concrete Read more...
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Mid-century residential buildings Designed by Ojars Kalns (CBK Van Norman & Associates) and built in 1965, with a fourth tower added [to the original three] north of Harwood Street in 1968, the iconic Beach Towers follow Le Corbusier’s “towers in the park” dictum where structures are set back allowing room for plazas, parking and landscaping. Kalns also elevated his buildings (on stilts) Read more...
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Mid-century office buildings Designed by architects Ron Thom & Ned Pratt (1955-1957) to house the B.C. Electric Company – later to be merged with BC Hydro – this 23-story tower is a classic example of the International Style and, at the time, was said to be the tallest building in the British Commonwealth. Although tall – for Vancouver in the Read more...
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Mid-century art/mid-century banks Tucked away above rows of greeting cards inside a busy downtown Vancouver drugstore at Granville & Dunsmuir streets endures a visually gripping mid-century mosaic mural by renowned Canadian artist & architect, BC Binning. For real! Commissioned as a feature wall inside this former Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce building (designed by influential architects McCarter & Nairne, in 1958), Binning’s mural – measuring Read more...
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Vintage mid-century antiques This jam-packed shop has been providing Vancouverites with a great assortment of vintage mid-century furniture, home accessories and collectable items since 1988; long before it was trendy to do so. Your one stop shop on The Drive – the wonderfully bohemian Commercial Drive! – for modernist, retro and vintage sofas, tables, chairs, kitchenware, Fiestaware, lighting, clocks, glassware, pottery, Read more...
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Mid-century brutalist buildings Designed in 1965 by noted architect Arthur Erickson (along with Geoffrey Massey) for the Canadian forestry company of the building’s original namesake, MacMillan Bloedel, the two offset 27-story towers that comprise Arthur Erickson Place (as it was renamed in 2022) was a landmark of minimalist modernism at the time it went up in 1968. The towers’ primary Read more...
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Mid-century residential buildings The waterfront block of Argyle Ave. and its surrounding area – especially Bellevue Avenue – between 21st and 22nd Streets in the Dundarave/Ambleside area of West Vancouver was rezoned for apartment buildings in 1959 so it’s no wonder it boasts some of the sweetest mid-century modern construction in Metro Vancouver. With names like “The Crescent,” “Villa Maris” and “The Read more...
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Mid-century accommodations Opened in 1946 as the “2400 Court,” a reference to when Motor Courts proliferated Kingsway (the main route leading in and out of Vancouver at the time), the 2400 rebranded itself as a “motel” in the early 1960s when more luxurious motor hotels (or, motels) began popping up along the busy thoroughfare. By the 1970s, new highway, bridge and Read more...
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PERMANENTLY CLOSED Mid-century & vintage collectibles Rows and rows of glass display cases filled with mid-century curiosities is what’s waiting for you at this busy antique store. In addition to your standard vintage jewelry, lamps, glassware, linens and general overall bric a brac, this place offers up unique vintage taxidermy, maps, tin toys, Christmas ornaments, advertising art and a whole lot more. Read more...