Views on “Views on Views”

Sean Ruthen over at re:place magazine has done a great job in reporting on the the “Views on Views” session held at the Segal Business School.  Here’s a taste:

Imagine then a world where the Eiffel Tower had never been constructed because it blocked a particular view of the Sacre Coeur, and compound this with the same view becoming blocked by a grove of protected tree foliage over time, and one begins to approximate the complexity that is the highly contentious subject of Vancouver’s view cones.

While cities in Europe have protected areas which limit building construction due to existing heritage structures, the City of Vancouver is unique in regards to its 27 protected view cones (though Seattle has their very similar ‘view corridors’). From the south shores of False Creek to Cypress, Grouse, and Seymour Mountains, the city has safeguarded these narrow pathways through its urban bulk from being overbuilt, all for the public benefit, with the consequence of having severely limited the development of those particular swaths of the city for the past twenty years.

Read it all here.