CACV
The Community Arts Council of Vancouver is the first Arts Council to be founded in North America. Founded by two dedicated women, Jean Russell and Elena Arkell. They recruited Virginia Lee Comer, an Arts Consultant from New York, to help them prepare a community arts plan designed to bolster community spirit in the post war years.
The Arts Council presented an ambitious exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery, titled Design For Living. The display consisted of four architecturally designed houses, decorated and furnished by local manufacturers. The prototype homes integrated creative elements (such as music, painting, ceramics and furniture design) with architecture to demonstrate the practicality of a house that incorporated art and livability. The work of Vancouver artists and craftspeople was featured and Over 14000 people attended the month-long event.
The show is widely considered to have marked the birth of Canada’s West Coast Modernist tradition in Architecture.
CACV Board Executive Frank Low-Beer, and other members, lobbied the Vancouver City Council (with a 20,000 name petition) to include a theatre in the late 1950’s five year plan. The plan was approved in 1953 and in 1954, CACV President Douglas Nixon lead a team that established the land on which the theatre would be built.
The Queen Elizabeth Theatre, opened in 1959, and the impact of its opening was immediate and profound: for the first time, major roadshows like My Fair Lady were able to stage productions in Vancouver, and shows staged across the U.S. border were compelled to extend their productions to Vancouver. Today, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre is home to the Vancouver Opera, Ballet British Columbia, and larger touring shows, and is currently in the midst of a long-range strategy for restoration, rehabilitation, and renovation.
The CACV launched the first Vancouver International Festival in 1958. After facing financial difficulties, the event was discontinued in 1969. The Vancouver International Film Festival Society relaunched it in its current form in 1982.
The Playhouse Board was formed by the City with CACV’s Mary Roaf as a member. Built in conjunction with the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, the Vancouver Playhouse opened in 1962 at a critical point in the development of the performing arts culture in Canada. Facilities for live theatre and musical groups were scarce. Today, the Vancouver Playhouse is home to DanceHouse, Friends of Chamber Music and the Vancouver Recital Society.
In 1963, CACV noted concern for lack of museum facilities in Vancouver and gathered a museum committee form Civic Museum Board, secured a grant from H.R. MacMillan family to commission Dr. Theodore Heinrich— world renowned museum expert from the Met Museum in NY, and past director of Royal Ontario Museum. Heinrich’s many recommendations received a lot of pushback from the city. Ultimately, the City of Vancouver approved the Heinrich Report and the new Centennial project- a collective of themed museums and civic archives was born. Today, these facilities run independently as the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, Museum of Vancouver (MOV) and the Vancouver Maritime Museum.
In 1975, the Provincial government proposed a municipal center building in the heart of Vancouver. The proposal included a tower that was over 200 meters (682 ft) tall. Opponents worried that the tower would cast a “dark shadow” over the heart of the city, and interrupt the skyline that was, until then, preserved. The CACV worked to secure an alternate proposal from legendary architect Arthur Erikson.
When Erickson described the project he said, ‘This won’t be a corporate monument. Let’s turn it on its side and let people walk all over it.’ He anchored it in such a way with the BC courts, the law, at one end and the museum (Vancouver Art Gallery),the arts, at the other. The foundations of society. And underneath it all, the government offices quietly support their people.
Today, Robson Square also houses a University of British Columbia campus, community ice rink, public art installations and multiple public court yards for the community to gather.
The CACV became heavily involved in civic heritage preservation during the 1970s, a time when many of Vancouver’s original structures were falling to new developments. The CACV initiated a ‘Heritage Identification’ project designed to identify structures of significant historical, cultural and artistic value to Vancouver. The Orpheum theatre, which was then slated for demolition, was identified as one such building. The CACV initiated negotiations between Famous Players and the city. Eventually, the city agreed to purchase and restore the theatre, restoring its magnificent interior. The Orpheum became the permanent home of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO)