A particular downtown building deserves to be added to the city's historic walking tour, in the estimation of an architect and historian.
Trelle Morrow, a retired architect, writes local history books. He had a designing hand in some of the buildings now featured on the city's walk of historical interest (the Seniors Activity Centre on Brunswick Street when it was the city's first public library; aspects of Knox United Church; etc.). He did not design the parkade at 4th Avenue and Quebec Street, but that doesn't stop him from appreciating its lines and structural features.
He is calling on the agencies involved in the walking tour - the City of Prince George, the Fraser-Fort George Regional District, the Prince George Public Library, Exploration Place, and led by the Prince George Heritage Commission - to add this structure to the 22 other buildings they have circled for their historical significance.
"It is one of the most significant specific-use buildings in the city; definitely a design highlight of downtown," he said, although he was critical of its modern condition. "The architects who built it in about 1965 were sensitive people to aesthetic outcomes being as important as the structural ones. That is exhibited in this parkade, with its columns and rounded edges and sweep of the ramp, and so on."
Morrow helped design the Hudson's Bay Company building that once sat adjacent to that spot (now City Furniture and Liquidation World). It was the structural engineering firm of Read, Jones, Christofferson of Vancouver that was commissioned to create the parkade. Morrow knew the three namesake partners (John, Peter and Per respectively) and called them "the most avant garde firm in Vancouver" in that area.
"I think, frankly, that Prince George is fortunate to have a piece of John Read sculpture," he added. "That parkade is a rather innovative design, a very sculptural looking piece of work."
Morrow critiqued the design as being a "pleasing occurrence on the landscape." He listed the key features as being "the curves highlighting the ramp, the brick finish at sidewalk level, and the geometric rendering of beam and column junctions... Certainly, it is a finely-tuned utilitarian structure."
Prince George Heritage Commission spokesman Jeff Elder was unavailable for comment.
