Book description
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.
Dorothy Mindenhall is an architectural historian with a particular
interest in the Victorian era. She was a contributor to
Building the West
, a publication about the architects and architectural environment of
early British Columbia, and is involved in various projects for heritage
conservation. She lives in Victoria.
