Title: Vancouver Matters
Publisher: Blueimprint
Published: December 2008
Paperback: 192 pages
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1897476108
ISBN-13: 978-1-897476-10-9
Size: 19.3 x 12.7 x 1.8 cm
Weight: 318 g

Representing Vancouver’s history and present materiality through writing, drawing and photography, Vancouver Matters offers a critical examination of the city’s faults and opportunities. The text is organized by the following material conditions...

andesite
blackberry
freeway
grass
hedge
heritage
horizon
iconography
intimacy
residue
stucco
sugar
trees
veil
view
water

The 16 investigations from artists, architects, designers, professors and students use the specific materials as a lens through which the city can be seen anew.

The project was initiated out of a certain skepticism toward the highly revered “Vancouverism” ideology – a civic-boosterism that has proliferated the local and global imagination in recent years but has not quite delivered the lifestyle that it readily promotes.

With a growing optimism that this present model is drawing to a close, these contributions offer an assessment in contrast to the myths the city has inherited. The series of explorations offer a look into the city’s make up, the historical developments that have constructed it, and what has been produced as a result. Each piece allows the specificity of the material condition to inform a particular and novel engagement with the city.

The book’s size playfully references the popular and ubiquitous pocket travel guides. This format, alongside the simplicity and subtlety of the graphic design, acts as counterpoint to the often weighty positions undertaken by the book’s contributors.

Vancouver Matters’ drive is to assemble new ideas and hidden opportunities through a series of intriguing visuals and texts that could form a departure for future city practices. It attempts to document what the city of Vancouver is made of and what it might yet become.

Recipient of a 2009 Design Exchange Award (Visual Communication) and a 2009 Alcuin Society Book Design Award (Prose Non-Fiction Illustrated)

Reviews and Press

Vancouver Matters presents some highly insightful perspectives on a city that has thrived in the past few decades. The 16 essays all highlight the fact that…Vancouver does indeed matter.
— Leslie Jen, Canadian Architect

Vancouver Matters is both an attempt to position Canada’s West Coast metropolis on the international architecture scene, and an assemblage of snapshots linked only by locale. They add up to a provocative…overview of a city that is still very much in the process of becoming.
— Alexander Varty, Georgia Straight

A lovely little mini-bible, vol. 1, of interesting bits about Vancouver…it’s a must for Vancouverophiles.
— Frances Bula, State of Vancouver

The explicit purpose of the book is to provoke a critical and thoughtful debate about several key issues relevant to Vancouver, and despite its small size, it lives up to its mandate forcefully. The breadth and variety of issues discussed makes for an overall stimulating book - well-packaged and beautifully put together.
— Erick Villagomez, re:place magazine

Vancouver Matters is less a book than a bound exhibit…it’s a beautifully rendered portrait of the city that presents the familiar in a bright new way.
— Rosemary Poole, Museum of Vancouver