Does Vancouver Hate Art

It seems that Vancouver has a hate on for public art installations.  In 2008 they booted the “upside down church” (actually named Device to Root Out Evil) from their waterfront. A 6 meter (compared to the 200m condominiums) upside down house with a spire was considered too obstructive to their scenic view. Forbid that there might be trees on the waterfront, a small hill, or another condo. Eghads! I’ve personally seen the sculpture – it was moved here to Calgary. It’s very nice.

Now, West Pender Place Condominium in Vancouver has recently completed and the light wall is receiving complaints. See this link for a video. Now, I may be wrong, but the amount of light being created from the installation seems significantly lower than the surrounding street lights and normal business lighting. Already the condo corporation has changed the running from 24 hours to “dusk to 10 pm.”

It’s a positive step that a condominium can be built attempting to better the cultural landmark, and not just exist as a towering concrete and glass monolith. Adding character to each condominium high-rise creates a distinct, unique, and positive benefit to the community. More attempts to add culture to developments should be encouraged.

So I wonder if Vancouver simply hates installation art. Maybe they need the crawling babies of the Zhizhkov TV Tower to metaphorically represent their mood.