Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 design-minded happenings to catch at West Coast Modern Week
From walking tours through upper Ambleside’s modernist landmarks to a screening about an unsung midcentury design maverick at Kay Meek Arts Centre, architectural celebrations abound
West Van’s marvellously modernist Firehall No. 1 is part of a West Coast Modern Week walking tour.
B.C. Binning House. Photo by The White Space Co.
A still from E.1027: Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea.
West Vancouver Art Museum presents West Coast Modern Week from July 7 to 12 at various locations
WEST COAST MODERN WEEK is back to celebrate the prized local architectural style that has gone increasingly global—a design born out of our breathtaking coastal setting in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s that prioritizes indoor-outdoor living and organic materials like cedar and glass.
Over seven days, design fans can indulge in talks, tours, parties, and the hugely popular Home Tour—a journey through local, architecturally significant houses.
Below, just five ways to learn more about the iconic midcentury movement, from a trip through some of West Van’s remarkable modernist civic structures to a film about an often overlooked icon of modern design.
Municipal Modern walking tours
July 7, 9, and 12
Gain a new appreciation for the modernist civic architecture of Ambleside in this walking tour that illuminates the way West Vancouver embraced expressive concrete and clean lines.
Led by guides from North Shore Heritage and the West Vancouver Art Museum, the tour includes interior access to iconic municipal buildings. The West Vancouver Municipal Hall was built in 1964, designed by Toby, Russell & Buckwell with broad overhangs, sheltered walkways, and pavilion‑like massing. Firehall No. 1, next door at Fulton Avenue and 16th Street, was designed by the same firm in 1967, incorporating similar styles and materials, complete with engine bays in a separate canopied roof, and a rectangular block that houses other functions.
The tour also includes a look at surrounding apartment blocks, all of it displaying how architects adapted international modernist ideas to a West Coast setting and envisioned a bold new form of densified, urban living for upper Ambleside.
Screening of E.1027: Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea
July 9, 7 pm, at Kay Meek Arts Centre
Early 20th-century Irish interior designer and architect Eileen Gray long struggled for recognition in a male-dominated field. She, and the modernist 1929 villa she built on the Côte d’Azur, E.1027, finally get their due in this unique docu-fictional film. The movie tracks the designing and building of the retreat with lover and Romanian architectural journalist Jean Badovici, and the way it fell into the hands of legendary French architect Le Corbusier, who altered the structure to his own tastes—most insultingly, he even painted frescoes over her clean white walls. Directors Beatrice Minger and Christoph Schaub employ a unique mix of archival footage and fictionalized re-enactments. The film artfully details the brilliant creative power of one woman, and a man’s desire to control her creations and overshadow her legacy.
Wanda Dalla Costa
Wanda Dalla Costa: A Living Repository: Architecture, Culture, and the Expansion of Modernism
July 10, 7 pm to 9 pm, at The Polygon Gallery
In this talk that draws on Wanda Dalla Costa’s Indigenous Placekeeping Framework, the architect and member of Saddle Lake Cree Nation explores how design can carry living knowledge systems and cultural practice within the built environment. Dalla Costa, who leads Indigenous design and research at TAWAW’s offices in Phoenix and Calgary and who positions her work at the intersection of contemporary design, Indigenous knowledge, and emerging technologies, will apply her new lens to modernism in the talk.
B.C. Binning House. Photo by The White Space Co.
20th Annual West Coast Modern Home Tour
July 11, 12 pm to 4 pm, starting from West Vancouver Municipal Hall
This tour always sells out—and may have sold out by the time you read this—but even by its own standards, this is a trip into West Coast Modern heaven. The big draw is a look inside B.C. Binning House, designed by B.C. Binning with consulting architects C.E. Ned Pratt and R.A.D. Berwick in 1941. Considered western Canada’s first truly modern residence, it makes the most of a modest, 1,600-square-foot structure where glass doors flow out the high-ceilinged living room to the sunlit patio outside. Inside, semi-transparent glass windows allows for openness, privacy, and abundant light within the home, allowing for natural light to permeate the home but without encroaching on the space within. The garden greenscape, designed by Vancouver landscaper Cornelia Oberlander, boasts a view of Point Grey. And inside, you’ll see Binning’s own artistic touches throughout.
Elsewhere on the tour are midcentury marvels like Fells House, designed by the legendary Ron Thom, of Thompson, Berwick & Pratt, in 1959; Rockview House, designed by ABC Architecture Building Culture in 2024; Fuldauer House, designed by Erickson-Massey Architects in 1966; and Stephanie Edwards Residence, designed by Bob Lewis in 1967.
Josh Roberts
West Coast Modern Week Concert: Josh Roberts
July 12, 2 pm, at West Vancouver Memorial Library
For the week’s intimate Sunday afternoon concert, Vancouver-based jazz guitarist Josh Roberts, who specializes in styles from the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, drawing inspiration from early electric jazz guitarists like Charlie Christian and George Barnes. He’s performed at festivals across North America and Europe. In this show, he and his ensemble interpret an array of swing and jazz music. 
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