What’s happening here?
A concert, yes? In this case, MexicoFest. And the singers were pulling out all the old chestnuts – Mexican songs even gringos knew. I hadn’t come here specifically to attend but was captured by the catchy music a kilometre away on the Coal Harbour seawall, and so headed for the source.
“Digital Orca” on the far right in the background gives away the location: Jack Poole Plaza on top of the new convention centre (map here). It’s a big space – a trapezoid approximately 150 meters long by 50 meters wide. Was it, maybe, too big for events other than something scaled up to Olympian proportions? Would it work as a welcoming public space even in off moments? Or for more modest attractions, like this one, where the numbers are in the hundreds, not thousands.
The answer, I think, is that it pretty much does.
The performance space is far enough north to avoid shadows from the southern towers. The plaza space subtly descends towards the harbour, creating a raked amphitheatre so that all the audience can see both the stage and the mountains rising above. (More images at Price Tags.) Little flights of stairs break the plaza, still disabled accessible, into three areas between the performance area and the Olympic cauldron, each ‘room’ defined by the slight elevations. Activities that wouldn’t work if the whole plaza was seen as one fit nicely into defined areas for music, booths, food and dancing.
The convention centre wall and roof dramatically define the plaza space on the west, and the designers have done a good job with the other elements – the lighting stanchions, the restaurant pavillion, the vewpoints and overlooks above – to create an enclosed and dynamic environment, making this a comfortably scaled urban room despite its immense size.
And that 50-meter width isn’t a coincidence. That’s the distance Jack Poole Plaza has in common with many great public spaces around the world – as illustrated here.
So it looks like Vancouver finally has an effective public square along its northern waterfront – on the edge, not in the centre.
2 comments
Great as it is for events – especially with stages that frame the view of the North Shore – it is otherwise dead and desolate for the day-to-day aside from the seemingly obligatory tourist photo-ops. There is simply nothing that is consistently there to activate the space. I assume there was a hope that conventions would spill into it, but I don’t believe that this ever actually happens. Even once the seawall is finally joined, the path is still routed away and out of sight of the space (huge missed opportunity).
Fifty metres may very well be appropriate for the width, but the length really governs the space when it’s empty, and there’s neither north nor south bounding to the space. The North Shore views almost work against the space when it’s quiet, as the grey pavement bleeds off amorphously into the far, hazy distance.
I agree with most of Brian Gould’s comments. I have been there when there is programming and when there isn’t. The place works nicely for large events. But, in the absence of major events, I have found it to be an awkward space. The sheer size and the amount of grey used in hardscaping make the place feel exposed and unpleasant.
Having said this, I though the same about Zocalo in Mexico City. It felt empty when no major functions were happening, and that is in spite of monumental buildings defining the edges of the place.