By: Tim Wang and Craig Cannon (Self published, 2015)
Living in a port city surrounded by a working harbour and rail yards its hard to miss the masses of containers that are an integral part of the transportation system. But have you ever looked closely at these steel boxes? No?
Well a recently published book The Container Guide from the American Container Society might make you look a little closer. Tim Wang and Craig Cannon are self described container nerds and this delightful volume is their version of a birder;s guide for containers.
There are few introductory essays about containers and some alternative uses, but the joy of the book is the straight forward listing of each shipping company, it’s logo, headquarters, sphere of influence etc., everything you need in a container spotting guide, including the Shipping Container World. The glossary at the back of the book fills you in on terms such as Panamax, Reefer and ULLC.
It’s fun to tuck this in the pocket and peer over the fence at the port and look at world trade a little bit differently.
Tim and Craig are part of Infrastructure Observatory that explores the urban infrastructure in all its guises. I look forward to future projects from this group.
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For more information on The Container Guide, visit the Kickstarter site.
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John Atkin is a civic historian and author who organizes and conduct tours for groups and individuals. John has explored Vancouver like few others have and offers an interesting and offbeat insight to the city’s architecture, history and neighbourhoods. He has created, and conducts, a number of unique and popular walking tours throughout the City of Vancouver. You can visit his website to his tour schedule.