Top10 Tour + Talk – Chinatown: Historic Urban Landscape

Chinatown is an important neighbourhood that reflects Vancouver’s history and heritage through continual interactions between culture and place in day-to-day life. Chinatown has been on our Watch List for the past two years and the National Trust for Canada Top 10 Endangered Places in 2016. It is a unique historic urban landscape that is increasingly at risk of losing its unique area character and special cultural / social life.
Following last year’s success with our new format tours on the Top10, we look forward to having you join us to learn about Chinatown as a Historic Urban Landscape. We will examine some of the background of the planning in Chinatown including the Chinatown Vision, the need for a new perspective for Chinatown planning, what is a Historic Urban Landscape and how it relates to a new perspective. Additionally, we will learn about the BC Artscape Sun Wah project and what type of work is being done there to try to capture the neighbourhood values that are important in Chinatown. Finally, we will learn about intangible cultural heritage in Chinatown, an important component of a Historic Urban Landscape, and experience some examples of that at the Keefer Triangle.
Guest speakers will include:
Dr. Henry Yu – Associate Professor of History, and Principal of St. John’s College, UBC.
Genevieve Bucher – President, BC Artscape
Doris Chow – Co-Founder of Youth Collaborative for Chinatown
The tour will begin in the courtyard at the Chinese Cultural Centre. Please bring comfortable shoes and be prepared for rain.
If you are a neighbourhood member wanting to join the tour but are unable to pay the full rate, please write to info@heritagevancouver.org. Unfortunately, at this time for this tour, Cantonese translation will be unavailable. We may have this as an option in the future.