28 - Sunday, January 6, 1991 - North Shore News

AFFLUENCE & INFLUENCE

Crockart d

NAME: Graham F. Crockart
BORN: Perthsire, Scotland
EDUCATION: graduate, School
of Architecture

OCCUPATION: Architect
RESIDENCE: West Vancouver
FAMILY: Two children

GRAHAM CROCKART is
sitting across the board-
room table, fiddling with a
ring on his left pinky.
‘People always ask me if
I’m a Leo,”’ he says of the
oval-shaped ring that sur-
rounds the profile of a
strutting Lion.

By Evelyn Jacob
News Reporter

A Leo maybe. A lion, Crockart
is not.

A gentle, soft-spoken man with
an infectious smile, Crockart has
the hospitality of a traditional
Scottish innkeeper and the vi-
sionary imagination of a man
ahead of his time.

When he was a boy, he stumbl-
ed upon a wealthy benefactor who
paid his entire way through ar-
chitecture school in Dundee,
Scotland. Since then he has ap-
proached his craft with a healthy
mix of sensitivity and experimen-
tation.

“I, to a degree, envy those ar-
chitects who have an absolute fix-
ed philosophy in their approach to
architecture,"’ says Crockart. ‘‘I
just simply do the best that [ can
in the context of the site, and re-
main humble about it.’’

ARCHITECT GRAHAM Crockart (right) discusses building site details with staff architect Dale

Staples.

If Crockart were to have one
philosophy, it would be making
fure his Structures blend
esthetically with their  environ-
ment.

One of his favorite projects is
Cates Tugs, a rendition of which
hangs on the wall of his North
Vancouver architectural firm.

Crockart managed to. suc-
cessfully catch the atmosphere of
the old Cates structure but not at
the expense of disrupting the

harmony of its surroundings. He
applied the same philosophy to his
Capilano Point residential devel-
opment, using natural cedar to
complement the contours of the
complex’s woody surroundings.
The past five years in particular
have been extremely exciting times
for architecture, says Crockart. As
today’s architects are moving
away from the modern movement,
he explains, a more experimental
style has begun to emerge — one

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that harkens back to a palette of
historical styles.

“J was brought up and trained
in the modern movement, and 1
believe it was a genuinely, pro-
found movement, but it runs its
course,’” says Crockart. ‘‘f think
architects hid behind the modern
movement...Now they're paying
attention to what history has
taught us, and I fike that. It’s a
transition period, and we're ‘r the
middle of it.””

ives into post-modern world

Crockart’s creations seem to
bear that theory out. While Cates
is unequivocally modern, some of
his other designs have been bor-
rowed from different cultures and
centuries gone by.

For instance, his 150-unit resi-
dential complex in Mallardville
was fashioned after a French
chateau. Crockart dipped back to
the past to pick up a _ neo-
Georgian look for his new Queens-
gate retirement centre in Rich-
mond, a 400-unit complex that
has all the comforts of a moderna
home.

So how does one apply a single
philoscphy to architecture?,
Crockart wonders aloud to
himself.

As he speaks one of his new
projects — the North Shore Board
of Health — is going up across
the street. Crockart is perhaps the
only architect in town who can
say he can watch his ideas take
form from his office balcony.

But for each building that goes
up, one is torn down. Members of
the public may resent the idea that
cities such as North Vancouver are
growing up, but Crockart believes
development here is progressing at
an acceptable rate.

At the same time, he insists,
every attempt should be made to
preserve those buildings deemed
genuinely historic.

‘*Everyone has a Golden Age in
mind when things in their essence
were perfect,’’ he says, ‘‘and if
you analyze it, you'N find that
time was between the 1920’s and
the 1930's. But everyone’s Golden
Age is different, and they want to
cling to that. Residents are look-
ing back 20 years and the planners
are looking 20 years ahead.”’

THE VOCE OF WORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER

north shore.

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