UPDATE: Proposed waterfront tower rejected by design panel

Watch: Architect Michael Geller speaks with BC1‘s Jill Bennett about the proposed tower

UPDATE, Jan.29: The proposal for a controversial glass tower in Vancouver’s waterfront has been rejected by the city of Vancouver’s urban design panel, which reviews all civic building projects.

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A local architect calls the proposal to build a new glass office tower in downtown Vancouver ‘a very unfortunate design situation.’

The proposed Cadillac Fairview highrise tower beside Waterfront Station has been described as an elegant piece of glass origami, but critics say it looks more like a geometric blob.

Architect Michael Geller says the problem with the building is the lower portion, “especially as it interrelates with the historic CPR station, the street and to a lesser degree the heritage building immediately to the east.”

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“I don’t think anyone is suggesting it needs to emulate the old buildings,” says Geller. “Indeed, I think a modern new glass building is entirely appropriate for this site, but what’s happened is this building is every large and it has been forced over…and as the result it really is jammed right up against the CPR station.”

I think people who will walk along that street, they are going to say, how did it ever get approved?

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Geller says the architect community is raising questions about why the proposal did not go through the kind of public process that any significant development might be expected to go through.

“There is no legal obligation, but I would have thought the planning department would have wanted public input given the significance of this site,” says Geller.