Part 1
Ian Gillespie had a problem: a piece of land the shape of a triangle.
It was 2010, and he was already an established developer. A few years earlier, his company, Westbank, had built Vancouver’s tallest tower, the 62-storey Shangri-La, and redeveloped the historic Woodward’s site in the city’s hardscrabble Downtown Eastside. But this property posed a new challenge. It was an awkward piece of land, wedged alongside an on-ramp to the Granville Street Bridge. The area surrounding it was shabby – home to several old, squat buildings. But as Mr. Gillespie mulled the lot, still unsure what he wanted to do with it, he recognized its potential.
“A lot of people would look at this site and say, ‘Okay, it’s a weird area,' " Mr. Gillespie recalled. “I looked at it as this tremendous opportunity, this gateway into Vancouver.”
Mr. Gillespie had recently met Bjarke Ingels, a 36-year-old Danish architect who wasn’t widely known, but who shared the developer’s urge to create innovative projects. The two men discovered in each other kindred spirits. “From now on,” Mr. Gillespie told the architect, “I only want to build great buildings.” Soon after, Mr. Gillespie handed Mr. Ingels his triangular riddle.
Mr. Ingels took on the design problem and came back with something unusual. He’d imagined a luxury condo tower that began from a triangular base and, floor by floor, twisted into a rectangle. Even on paper, the structure seemed to taunt gravity and defy physics. Mr. Gillespie had found the answer to his puzzle.
Today, as construction at the site bangs, rattles and buzzes, the building dubbed Vancouver House has risen high above the bridge. It’s set to open next year and has already won a major international architecture award. Judges at the World Architectural Festival in 2015 called the eye-popping design a “delightful project” that will have a positive impact on “municipality- and developer-led agendas for cities across the world.”
Vancouver House is a statement building, a structure that flouts conventional expectations, but as an Ian Gillespie project, it’s not unusual. The developer revels in creating buildings that break the mould in surprising ways, typically through innovative, visually arresting design. His aim, he said, is to “really stretch the boundaries of what’s possible,” and he’s busy applying that trademark approach to a handful of marquee sites currently under development in Toronto, Vancouver and Seattle. With a portfolio of projects in the works collectively worth more than $10-billion – including another twisty tower in Calgary, a peaked condo complex in Toronto that mimics a mountain range (both by Mr. Ingels) and a development on the old site of the city’s landmark discount store, Honest Ed’s – the 56-year-old developer ranks as one of Canada’s most active builders.
Housing advocates in Vancouver have railed against his luxurious buildings, calling them magnets for high-end real estate market speculators that do little to address the city’s housing crisis – though a new affordable rental housing project Mr. Gillespie has pitched to the federal government could prove his critics wrong. In his quest to create buildings that grab attention, Mr. Gillespie makes no pretense of humility. Architecture in Toronto, in particular, is a “plague of ordinary,” he said. And with several developments under way in the city’s core, he’s resolved to change that.
Ian Gillespie, shown training at UBC in 1982, was an elite 800-metre runner in his early 20s. Guided by coach Doug Clement, a former Olympic runner, Mr. Gillespie nearly made the 1984 Summer Olympics.
Ian Gillespie has always been determined to stand out. In high school, he was a promising middle-distance runner and came into the orbit of Doug and Diane Clement, Olympians in the 1950s. Under the guidance of his new coaches, he got faster and faster on the track, but he was hampered by anterior compartment syndrome – a painful condition that caused swelling in the calf muscles, and required two surgeries. At the 800-metre race to make the Canadian team for the 1984 Olympics, Mr. Gillespie finished third and didn’t make the cut.
“Ian learned the bitter lessons,” Mr. Clement said. “He was quiet and reserved, but on the inside he had unbelievable ambition.”
By then, he was in his early 20s and beginning to contemplate a new dream: a career in business. He wanted to be a millionaire by 30. As a teenager, he had been wowed by an older cousin’s 1972 red Jaguar E-Type convertible. Later, during his MBA at the University of Toronto, he considered investment banking, the 1980s siren song for many, but instead joined a real estate firm run by his cousin, Rod Schroeder, the man with the Jag.
It was not glamorous work: Schroeder Properties mainly developed strip malls. Over time, Mr. Gillespie’s relationship with his cousin became strained, and he started running projects by himself. By the early 1990s, now in his 30s and bored of working on shopping centres, Mr. Gillespie struck out on his own.
His first project was an office-residential-retail development in the suburbs. Mr. Gillespie was drawn to the challenge of developing a complex mix of uses for the site, and projects like this became a hallmark of Westbank’s approach.
As he continued to develop mixed-use buildings, Mr. Gillespie looked to James Cheng for aesthetic direction. The Canadian architect had been mentored by two greats in the field, American Richard Meier and Vancouver’s Arthur Erickson. Mr. Cheng was known for his slender towers that rose above a podium of townhomes – a style that came to define the city and become known as Vancouverism.
In the mid-1990s, the two collaborated on Westbank’s first project in downtown Vancouver. The development, called the Palisades, was a pair of oval-shaped towers. Mr. Cheng and Mr. Gillespie continued to work closely together into the 2000s, including on the city’s Shangri-La.
Starting with that tower, Mr. Gillespie also forged a financial relationship with Vancouver-based Peterson Group, which became his company’s go-to partner for several years. Mr. Gillespie and Ben Yeung, the head of the Peterson Group, sketched out their first deal on a Tim Hortons napkin.
As he built these shiny high-rises, Mr. Gillespie saw he could use brand-name architecture, such as Mr. Cheng’s work, to sell expensive real estate. (Penthouses at the Palisades sold for $1.5-million, while two-bedroom units went for as much as $405,000, prices that seem low for the city by today’s standards but were high end in the mid-1990s.) The concept was new at the time in Vancouver, and became the second hallmark of Westbank.
Ian Gillespie had a problem: a piece of land the shape of a triangle.
It was 2010, and he was already an established developer. A few years earlier, his company, Westbank, had built Vancouver’s tallest tower, the 62-storey Shangri-La, and redeveloped the historic Woodward’s site in the city’s hardscrabble Downtown Eastside. But this property posed a new challenge. It was an awkward piece of land, wedged alongside an on-ramp to the Granville Street Bridge. The area surrounding it was shabby – home to several old, squat buildings. But as Mr. Gillespie mulled the lot, still unsure what he wanted to do with it, he recognized its potential.
“A lot of people would look at this site and say, ‘Okay, it’s a weird area,' " Mr. Gillespie recalled. “I looked at it as this tremendous opportunity, this gateway into Vancouver.”
Mr. Gillespie had recently met Bjarke Ingels, a 36-year-old Danish architect who wasn’t widely known, but who shared the developer’s urge to create innovative projects. The two men discovered in each other kindred spirits. “From now on,” Mr. Gillespie told the architect, “I only want to build great buildings.” Soon after, Mr. Gillespie handed Mr. Ingels his triangular riddle.
Mr. Ingels took on the design problem and came back with something unusual. He’d imagined a luxury condo tower that began from a triangular base and, floor by floor, twisted into a rectangle. Even on paper, the structure seemed to taunt gravity and defy physics. Mr. Gillespie had found the answer to his puzzle.
Today, as construction at the site bangs, rattles and buzzes, the building dubbed Vancouver House has risen high above the bridge. It’s set to open next year and has already won a major international architecture award. Judges at the World Architectural Festival in 2015 called the eye-popping design a “delightful project” that will have a positive impact on “municipality- and developer-led agendas for cities across the world.”
Vancouver House is a statement building, a structure that flouts conventional expectations, but as an Ian Gillespie project, it’s not unusual. The developer revels in creating buildings that break the mould in surprising ways, typically through innovative, visually arresting design. His aim, he said, is to “really stretch the boundaries of what’s possible,” and he’s busy applying that trademark approach to a handful of marquee sites currently under development in Toronto, Vancouver and Seattle. With a portfolio of projects in the works collectively worth more than $10-billion – including another twisty tower in Calgary, a peaked condo complex in Toronto that mimics a mountain range (both by Mr. Ingels) and a development on the old site of the city’s landmark discount store, Honest Ed’s – the 56-year-old developer ranks as one of Canada’s most active builders.
Housing advocates in Vancouver have railed against his luxurious buildings, calling them magnets for high-end real estate market speculators that do little to address the city’s housing crisis – though a new affordable rental housing project Mr. Gillespie has pitched to the federal government could prove his critics wrong. In his quest to create buildings that grab attention, Mr. Gillespie makes no pretense of humility. Architecture in Toronto, in particular, is a “plague of ordinary,” he said. And with several developments under way in the city’s core, he’s resolved to change that.
Ian Gillespie, shown training at UBC in 1982, was an elite 800-metre runner in his early 20s. Guided by coach Doug Clement, a former Olympic runner, Mr. Gillespie nearly made the 1984 Summer Olympics.
Ian Gillespie has always been determined to stand out. In high school, he was a promising middle-distance runner and came into the orbit of Doug and Diane Clement, Olympians in the 1950s. Under the guidance of his new coaches, he got faster and faster on the track, but he was hampered by anterior compartment syndrome – a painful condition that caused swelling in the calf muscles, and required two surgeries. At the 800-metre race to make the Canadian team for the 1984 Olympics, Mr. Gillespie finished third and didn’t make the cut.
“Ian learned the bitter lessons,” Mr. Clement said. “He was quiet and reserved, but on the inside he had unbelievable ambition.”
By then, he was in his early 20s and beginning to contemplate a new dream: a career in business. He wanted to be a millionaire by 30. As a teenager, he had been wowed by an older cousin’s 1972 red Jaguar E-Type convertible. Later, during his MBA at the University of Toronto, he considered investment banking, the 1980s siren song for many, but instead joined a real estate firm run by his cousin, Rod Schroeder, the man with the Jag.
It was not glamorous work: Schroeder Properties mainly developed strip malls. Over time, Mr. Gillespie’s relationship with his cousin became strained, and he started running projects by himself. By the early 1990s, now in his 30s and bored of working on shopping centres, Mr. Gillespie struck out on his own.
His first project was an office-residential-retail development in the suburbs. Mr. Gillespie was drawn to the challenge of developing a complex mix of uses for the site, and projects like this became a hallmark of Westbank’s approach.
As he continued to develop mixed-use buildings, Mr. Gillespie looked to James Cheng for aesthetic direction. The Canadian architect had been mentored by two greats in the field, American Richard Meier and Vancouver’s Arthur Erickson. Mr. Cheng was known for his slender towers that rose above a podium of townhomes – a style that came to define the city and become known as Vancouverism.
In the mid-1990s, the two collaborated on Westbank’s first project in downtown Vancouver. The development, called the Palisades, was a pair of oval-shaped towers. Mr. Cheng and Mr. Gillespie continued to work closely together into the 2000s, including on the city’s Shangri-La.
Starting with that tower, Mr. Gillespie also forged a financial relationship with Vancouver-based Peterson Group, which became his company’s go-to partner for several years. Mr. Gillespie and Ben Yeung, the head of the Peterson Group, sketched out their first deal on a Tim Hortons napkin.
As he built these shiny high-rises, Mr. Gillespie saw he could use brand-name architecture, such as Mr. Cheng’s work, to sell expensive real estate. (Penthouses at the Palisades sold for $1.5-million, while two-bedroom units went for as much as $405,000, prices that seem low for the city by today’s standards but were high end in the mid-1990s.) The concept was new at the time in Vancouver, and became the second hallmark of Westbank.