Unbuilt Victoria

Nonfiction, Art & Architecture, Architecture, History, Americas, Canada
Cover of the book Unbuilt Victoria by Dorothy Mindenhall, Dundurn
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Author: Dorothy Mindenhall ISBN: 9781459701755
Publisher: Dundurn Publication: May 12, 2012
Imprint: Dundurn Language: English
Author: Dorothy Mindenhall
ISBN: 9781459701755
Publisher: Dundurn
Publication: May 12, 2012
Imprint: Dundurn
Language: English

Unbuilt Victoria celebrates the city that is, and laments the city that could have been.

For most people, resident and visitor alike, Victoria, British Columbia, is a time capsule of Victorian and Edwardian buildings. From a modest fur-trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company it grew to be the province’s major trading centre. Then the selection of Vancouver as the terminus of the transcontinental railway in the 1880s, followed by a smallpox epidemic that closed the port in the 1890s, resulted in decline.

Victoria succeeded in reinventing itself as a tourist destination, based on the concept of nostalgia for all things English, stunning scenery, and investment opportunities. In the modernizing boom after the Second World War attempts were made to move the city’s built environment into the mainstream, but the prospect of Victoria’s becoming like any other North American city did not win public approval.

Unbuilt Victoria examines some of the architectural plans that were proposed but rejected. That some of them were ever dreamed of will probably amaze, that others never made it might well be a matter of regret.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Unbuilt Victoria celebrates the city that is, and laments the city that could have been.

For most people, resident and visitor alike, Victoria, British Columbia, is a time capsule of Victorian and Edwardian buildings. From a modest fur-trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company it grew to be the province’s major trading centre. Then the selection of Vancouver as the terminus of the transcontinental railway in the 1880s, followed by a smallpox epidemic that closed the port in the 1890s, resulted in decline.

Victoria succeeded in reinventing itself as a tourist destination, based on the concept of nostalgia for all things English, stunning scenery, and investment opportunities. In the modernizing boom after the Second World War attempts were made to move the city’s built environment into the mainstream, but the prospect of Victoria’s becoming like any other North American city did not win public approval.

Unbuilt Victoria examines some of the architectural plans that were proposed but rejected. That some of them were ever dreamed of will probably amaze, that others never made it might well be a matter of regret.

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