Selwyn Pullan is Vancouver’s most prolific architectural photographer of midcentury modern houses and buildings. He’s 86 now, and recently a collection of his photographs has been shown at the West Vancouver Museum (which make sense, since so much of Vancouver’s modern housing is located in that municipality across the harbour), and at the Charles H. Scott gallery. It’s titled Positioning the New. I grew up in Vancouver and it was strangely fascinating to see all of these familiar modern buildings collected together, and to realize that all of these familiar iconic photographs were actually produced by the same person. See stories on Pullan in Canadian Architect, the Vancouver Sun and the Charles H. Scott site (or click below for the Canadian Architect and Vancouver Sun articles, both worth reading). From the Sun article:

As a body of work, his photos of Vancouver’s modern architectural movement are a one-of-a-kind treasure trove, the primary photographic history of the heyday of Vancouver modernism. ”Without question, he is about the most important architectural photographer we’ve had in this part of the world,” says heritage expert Don Luxton. ”He had a great eye for determining the character of buildings. They really capture the essence of the era. Many, many, many of his photographs were published in magazines of the era — his style really characterized what was happening in the modern movement.”

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Julius Shulman, the prominent architectural photographer who helped introduce North America to modern architecture, died yesterday at age 98. Shulman had never retired. Working solidly almost up until months before his death, he produced a remarkably complete photographic archive of modern American interiors and exteriors spanning more than a 50-year period. Despite the fact that not everyone might recognize his name, his photographs have been seen by tens of millions of people. See also related post here, and obituaries in the New York Times and LA Times.

One last Vancouver house by Arthur Erickson. The house was built for and is still owned by the painterGordon Smith and his partner Marion. They have carefully maintained it over the years, in keeping with Erickson’s original design and intention. There’s an interesting article in Vancouver Magazine about the difference between their informed maintenance and the slow degradation of Erickson’s nearby Graham House, which was demolished in 2007. For another painter’s house in West Vancouver, see the BC Binning house here. All photos are from Arthur Erickson’s site and are by Ezra Stoller, John Fulker and Steven Zhen Wang.

Selgas Cano is a Spanish architecture firm, and this long glass tube in a little wooded ravine is the Madrid office they’ve built for themselves. The shutters over the clear roof are retractable (see the photo of the pulleys at bottom). The building seems to have inspired some wildly varying reactions from those who either find it beautiful and inspiring or who feel it’s a cramped, claustrophobic, unventilated bunker or train car – see the archdaily link to see what I mean. The superb photos are by architectural photographer Iwan Baan. Via archdaily via kenmat and maxchad. PS Both fans and detractors of this space may want to read a recent Scientific American article on the neuroscience of how room design affects work, creativity and mood. Two relevant points are that low ceilings facilitate detail work while high ceilings facilitate abstraction; and that views of nature improve creativity, focus and memory. This space offers all of those advantages – natural views, as well as ceilings that are both low and high, depending on the retraction of the roof and on which part of the room you’re in.

The writer Douglas Coupland (“Generation X”), who has been interested in Canadiana for a long time, recently went about finding a classic 70s “builder’s special” house slated for demolition, filled it with objects constructed from the Canadian paraphernalia of his childhood, and then staged a party in it. He called the sprawling art installation “Canada House” and its eccentrically decorated rooms contained numerous sculptures assembled from items that only Canadians would really fully understand. Coupland’s Canadiana is not really the hunting lodge/maple syrup Canadiana of the East, but a specifically West Coast version referencing the ocean and all other things British Columbian. It’s a lesser known fact that Coupland had a career as an artist before he became a writer, graduating from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver where he grew up. Coupland’s interest in Canadiana, a lot of it quite odd, first appeared in his two books “Souvenir  of Canada.” The book and his “Canada House” installation spawned a recent film called Souvenir of Canada in which the entire process described above is documented. It’s a strange combination of dispassionate irony and deeply personal nostalgia. An interesting CBC review is here. These fantastic photos were shot by well-known Vancouver photographer Martin Tessler who has also shot covers for Metropolitan Home and many other shelter magazines. Photos, in order: fishing float lamps; whale vertebrae made from styrofoam jetsam; mussel shell midden; Haida button blanket.