When the Bloedel Conservatory opened in Vancouver in 1969 it must have seemed like an alien spacecraft had landed and taken up residence at one of the highest points within the city. Built with a donation from Prentice Bloedel, the conservatory represents a vision of the future, both in vision and in purpose, and after viewing the archive footage from the opening it’s easy to see how much of the park and city have evolved, the trees have grown taller, and so too have the buildings in the downtown core. Even inside many of the plants seem bigger than they once did, a sort of time capsule of plants.
40 years on and the Bloedel still exists, though for how much longer is in question. It seems that the $250 000 it would require to keep it open is just not in the budget for the city of Vancouver. This to me is a shame, and perhaps I am a little to blame. I’ve lived in Vancouver since 2004 and have just recently visited the Bloedel for my first time. I didn’t go because of guilt or a desire to save the Bloedel, I went for the reason anyone should go, I happened to be there one day, and was looking for something to do. I wish I had gone sooner.
Under the dome I discovered a world of plants, birds and fish that was completely unlike what we are used to on the outside. Vines stretch down from the trees that grow nearly to the ceiling of the glass dome. Part of me wanted to reach up and grab one, swinging through the conservatory like Tarzan swinging through the jungle. I enjoyed the birds swooping around my head as I tried to photograph others, like jealous children wondering why someone isn’t paying attention to them. The air humid, and warm was a wonderful change from the slightly cool dry air outside the dome. I felt as if I had escaped the lingering chill of winter and skipped right to the summer I had been waiting for. I hope the conservatory is around this next winter so I can escape the rain and the cold, and hopefully relieve some of the depression that affects me every year. The conservatory is a wonderful place.
It’s places like these that are so important to cities in Canada because of the escape from winter that they can provide. I am most certain that they are not built for the tourists, but for the residents. Many of us are not able to afford trips to the exotic destinations where these plants exist naturally, but why should that stop us from seeing, and learning about them. Coming from Edmonton Alberta I had many trips to the Muttart Conservatory, a structure that consists of four pyramids, each hosting it’s own separate micro-climate. I enjoyed these trips to the Muttart during my time living in Edmonton, many of which coming on school field trips, but a few on my own too. Admission to the conservatory in Edmonton was free until after the $6.3 million renovation in 2009, and now remains under ten dollars, it’s still an affordable afternoon out.
More important than getting out, conservatories are a place where we can learn about the natural environments the world over, in many cases environments that are becoming increasingly endangered, and places like the Bloedel and the Muttart I feel are also becoming increasingly rare. With Vancouver’s push to be the greenest city by 2020 the city is letting a wonderful educational resource slip through it’s fingers, we should be expanding the Bloedel, not thinking of shutting it down, perhaps creating a facility that rivals the Eden Project in the UK. With the decimation of the environments that these conservatories represent the question we should be asking isn’t about whether we can afford to operate these buildings, but can we afford not to?
