Book launch January 2010
Edited by Robert Enright
Proclaiming the Woodward’s redevelopment, marketing billboards across Vancouver boldly promised ‘Community’ under a lustrous red W, the old department store’s iconic neon sign. Woodward’s 1993 closure had intensified the sense of dispossession in the Downtown Eastside, a neighbourhood long-affected by poverty, homelessness and drug addiction. The redevelopment of Woodward’s into a complex of multi-use buildings, offering significant urban spaces and integrating market and social housing makes an optimistic claim for inclusion, one that may be seen as a Canadian model in its quest to become home for an heterogeneous arrayof cultures.
BODY HEAT tells the story of the Woodward’s Redevelopment in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. The project is unique in the history of Vancouver due to its scale, inclusivity, social aspirations and the complexity of the partnerships required.
The book features 23 interviews with key participants in the redevelopment process. The book is edited by acclaimed art critic Robert Enright, who conducted all of the interviews and edited a series of essays, which provide insight into the diversity of issues confronted by the project.
The book also includes a myriad of images: historical photographs and memorabilia, construction photographs, contextual documentary photography and conventional architectural drawings.
BODY HEAT illustrates a community’s capacity to integrate the poetic and ethical dimensions of existence. The intention of the project and the book is to give meaningful expression to people’s daily struggles for survival and orientation, explore the partnerships needed to realize a larger social mission, and challenge today’s architects to build beautiful cities for all citizens.