I'm meeting today with Joe Wai, of Joe Wai Architects, in his very distinctive offices here in Yaletown. Good afternoon Joe.
Good afternoon Steve.
You know when I met you one evening, of course, at the Art Gallery, the Centre A Show, and I noticed on your name card that you were in Yaletown, I thought, boy, Joe is a pretty fashionable architect, but I gather that you made that decision long, long ago.
On the contrary.
All right.
I'm anything but "fashionable". Uh huh. I notice, too, of course, as I sit here in your office, I notice a lot of artifacts and drawings, that reflect your knowledge and your background in Chinese architecture, although I presume most of your work has had nothing much to do with Chinese architecture.
Well, yes and no, I suppose, aside from obvious interest in it, partly because it's part of my heritage, but on the other hand, it is something that fascinates me and it's something that I find that you can, not so much use, as learn about it, and because we have grown up in Canada, by and large, that ... it seems like maybe a part of your heritage that you never got a chance to study or know much about. But initially, did you study here, or did you study in Hong Kong, or where did you take your...?
I was born in Hong Kong and came here when I was about 11 or 12 -- Oh, I see, okay. So, I went through high school here -- Right. And university -- And university here. So presumably, as a struggling architect, most of your original work, when you first started working, would have been in more conventional buildings or structures or homes that have very little to do with the Chinese - Very little. Very little, yeah.
So at what point were you able to start introducing some of the Chinese influence in your work?
Well the main event is the Sun Yat Sen Gardens.
Oh.
I see.
Okay, so you were involved with the Sun Yat Sen Gardens?
Yes, yes. We were, ah -- I was involved in the Chinese Cultural Centre first.
Right .
...about 30 years ago.
Right .
...when the idea of putting something permanent on the path that the City was contemplating putting a freeway on.
So it was as much a political issue as -- Absolutely -- Alright . At the same time we got into the designing of the cultural centre -- there were a number of us working on the notion of that -- that we must have authentic -- a formal authenticity of Chinese architecture -- of classical architecture. Obviously, we know you can't build those things, and particularly in those days, we never knew whether any of the old technology or craftsmanship would be available. But in order to have that -- a traditional, classical look -- you -- the counterpart of that is the Chinese garden. So, by that time we were proposing a Chinese garden. We don't own any land. We didn't have any money. So we walked around with this enormous model, that is 40 acres' worth -- Where did you get the model from? We made it ourselves.
But you must have been inspired by something?
Yes, we were. We were young and idealistic and thought we knew everything.
Was there a, was there a garden in China that you took -- was this Suzhou or Hangzhou?
No. We knew of them.
Right .
In those days, of course, China had a -- the doors were closed, and you can only know from previous books and in terms of the Chinese culture itself we talked about gardens, poems, novels -- they all mention -- So you have a notion what it is. And so -- but we didn't know what it was. until the first time I was sent back there in 1975 and went to Suzhou and I couldn't believe what it was. It just blew my mind. And, and all -- everything you heard about, is all true, except it's better. Right then and there I said to my colleagues, we must have one, however bold that was. And of course we had no money or anything.
This was in '75? Um hmm.
But you said you'd started in '72 -- With the Cultural Centre. Oh, with the Cultural Centre. Oh, I see.
So that the Garden project didn't begin until '75? No. The Garden project didn't come until 1980. 1980. Oh.
We were still busy doing the Cultural Centre.
Right.
We still hadn't put the Cultural Centre together yet. This is in conjunction with the Cultural Centre. For an authentic Chinese building, you have to have a garden. The Yin and the Yang, so to speak.
Right .
So, anyway, we finally got the Cultural Centre going in '78, '79, '80, and then the Garden became, all of an accident, and a variety of situations, and we were very, very fortunate. I consider a Lou Gehrig disciple. I considered myself the luckiest man on earth to be selected to look after the Garden. They could have done it a number of other ways. And from then on, when I got a chance to go -- to work with these people from Suzhou who had just finished a small little garden in the Museum of Modern Art I think it is ... Metropolitan Museum in New York. And even at that time China was just opening the doors to the outside, ping-pong diplomacy etc. And I was really amazed that they have these people still available. The craftsmanship, the understanding of the design of gardens, and we worked with them and went over to China to study the gardens with them, and make suggestions, and they were the ones who really taught me, and us, a few of us, a lot about how things are. But I think that's just a seed of opening up into what is potentially a -- just a very profound and endless depth of aspects of Chinese culture. It's funny, you know, when I go to Chinatown, and not having any -- really -- real involvement with Chinatown, I am, nevertheless, struck by those buildings with their balconies, and how they look down on the street, and having lived in Hong Kong, and visited China in the late '60's and the '70's, I certainly feel that, even though the nature of the buildings is different, there is a relationship involved. It's unfortunate somehow, that that doesn't come out as much today, in the mumbo-jumbo that you see down there, that ... but if you look at those buildings, they're quite remarkable buildings. Well, yeah. I think it's a ... it definitely has a resemblance to Hong Kong, Macao and Guangzhou buildings of the 19th and 20th century. Ah, the majority of Vancouver's Chinatown, and Chinatowns in North America, was built in the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century. And where do they turn to, to build these buildings? And what are they used for? I mean, 90% of the people are male, they are single, and they belong to the same village or association, they're all Wongs, or Lees, or Mahs. So that each one of these guys their group builds their building. Where do they draw examples of --? They don't have any Chinese Canadian architects. We were not born yet. Our predecessors were not born yet. We were not allowed to practice anyway. Ah, the thing is that they draw -- they have, they have local, so to speak, British architects, or Canadian architects. Ah, they tell them what they want. Ah, which they have an idea. They have pictures maybe, back in Hong Kong, back in Macao. It is all very vertical. They have balconies, they have cornices, and they, ah, and they also have a "through-breeze" through the building. They have large, light walls inside, except we don't need it here. They are narrow because they emulate Hong Kong and Guangzhou because it is very humid, overshadowing each one. They protect each other from the street through a large third-storey mezzanine, high ceilings, the wind can flow through.
At the same time, in North America, the sort of Gingerbread Victorian architecture was on. That was the "fashion of the day". And the architects just married the two things. You've got little "do-dads" and decorative things on top -- a very Victorian version of cornices, and verticality, and this is what we've got. Now, as time goes on, now they've been deteriorating for some time, and because of the freeway debates in the '60's, we managed to get Chinatown and Gastown declared "Historical". They can't touch them. Okay. Which is fine. We saved them. But we also can't redevelop them. Oh, I see.
And over the last 30 years or so, ah, it's gone -- the Building By-law has gone much more stringent. You have not only elevators, you have fire escapes, you have sprinkler systems, and anybody touching them would have a heck of a time making economic sense of them, so a lot of them have deteriorated. We have continued looking into things like this -- what can be done. There've been some relaxation to -- and some, maybe, heritage assistance to -- ah, renovating. There's some bonuses for density elsewhere, for the same owner, if he will transfer it, and hopefully some of these buildings will get resurrected. We're working on one or two of them. It takes a long time.
One last point I'd like to leave with you, and I'd -- and I'd -- obviously, it's very interesting to hear of your involvement and your commitment to improving Chinatown, and I think it might be interesting to touch briefly on the Gate Project. Yeah. That -- the Gate idea, the first Gate idea is -- is -- that we know of -- goes back to early 20th century. There's a large sort of gate entrance built in 1936 in bamboo, on ah block 17, ah for the -- Vancouver's 50th anniversary. But that was in bamboo was designed to be taken down at the end of the year. The gate over Pender Street has been talked about for at least 25 years, that I am aware of. Ah, each time it's the cost. Each time, people in Chinatown argue where it should be. The irony is, in 1986, after Expo, the government of China gave a gate to the community. They more or less made them an offer they can't refuse, so there was a lot of debate over where to put it. And by 1986, the community was such that [they] are still worried about, if you put a gate in a certain place, that means we're locked-in again. That we're again going back to being a ghetto. So they put it on.on. in front of the Cultural Centre. At least not really a gate of crossing the street. I guess 15 years later now, two or three years ago, this new -- or a large organization put together -- put the Millennium Gate together. Now people are far more confident that putting a gate there would not shut us in. "Us" being Chinatown. And is more like a demarcation of the celebration of the boundary, or the seam, between, so to speak, downtown and Chinatown.
Well, on that note, then, I want to thank you very much for taking the time. And we look forward to seeing the Gate open on the 24th of June.
Pleasure.
Thank you very much.
