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Stone from the fuR TRADE years Think you have to go to Rome to see ruins? The huge, random, rubble-stone retaining wall along Wharf Street, between the old Custom House at Broughton and Bastion Square, is actually what’s left of the east exterior wall of the Hudson Bay Company Fur Warehouse, the city’s first large commercial building, built in 1858. It’s a structural artifact symbolic of Victoria’s raison d’être. You can even see original wood beams where the red bricks meet the stonework.
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TILE FOUNTAINS OF YORE More examples of noteworthy historical design are the Jameson Motors Tile Fountains, designed in 1928 by Victoria architect W.J. Semeyn. Like features from an Italian villa, the colourful fountains embellished the exterior of the car dealership on Broughton Street. One fountain remains on its original wall, still close to cars in the adjacent Robbins lot. Part of the second fountain was relocated to a courtyard behind the Law Chambers Building in Bastion Square. Fronted by garbage bins and locked behind a gate, it has few admirers because no one knows it’s there. This beautiful piece of Victoria’s design history seems wasted; if relocated it could be enjoyed by lunchbreaking locals or gelato-eating tourists.
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CODED STEPS OF POETRY Less historical, but still one of the best-kept secrets in Victoria is the Morse Code poetry along three blocks of Broad Street from View to Pandora. Irregular patterns of lines above street names carved in 24 granite sidewalk stones are really coded phrases from Broad Street Blues, a poem by Michael Kenyon, based on the street’s history and written during the 19982000 Broad Street Revitalization project. Code translations include phrases like “pass into night,” “by an old wall,” and “ghosts no pain,” says Ringuette. Architect Christopher Rowe came up with this creative way to encode excerpts from the poem subtly in the sidewalk design, when the original plan to display the written work publicly on Broad Street was terminated. The result is cryptic public art.
As design of cities evolves and bends toward the future, historic urban keepsakes are preserved, altered or lost completely. The ones that remain give character and honesty to civic streets, while allowing room for complementary modern design and challenging artificial imitation. VB 65