Description of Historic Place

The Wright Building is a four-storey masonry Chicago-style residential/commercial building situated on East Hastings Street in Vancouver.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the Wright Building lies in the historic relationship between this area and the economy of early Vancouver. At the turn of the twentieth century, this area was developed as a shopping district as commercial activity spread outward from its early roots in Gastown. As the young city grew, so did its commercial district. It was the home of several hotels, lodgings, and small retail outlets which were established to serve the growing blue-collar population.

Built in 1908-1909, the Wright Building (named for architect, builder, and owner R. D. Wright) is typical of scores of residential/commercial buildings built during the early twentieth century, when this area of town was the prime business and shopping area. The Chicago-style cornice and grid-like organization of the facade is typical of urban buildings erected between the 1890s to the 1920s in the east side of downtown Vancouver. The perfection of steel frame and reinforced concrete construction, as well as the development of the elevator, permitted these buildings to rise to four and more storeys. The verticality of the Wright Building is stressed by the use of pilasters which run from above the main floor to the level of the original cornice (since removed).The use of glazed terra cotta ornamentation and mosaic floor tiles in the entrances is common in other hotels as well.

Early tenants of the main floor offices included real estate firms, the Brunswick Pool Room (until it moved up the street to its new home at in 1911), the Singer Sewing Machine Company, grocery outlets, and the Log Cabin Lunch - a use which would continue until the 1940s. The diversity of businesses - tailors, a billiard hall, barber, hat cleaners, men's furnishings and boot shop - illustrate the changing demographics of the area from a predominately male-oriented clientele to more family-oriented. The building is now used as a hotel.

Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Wright Building include:
- the functional relationship between this building and others in the Hastings Street corridor
- solid rectangular massing and vertical form
- Chicago-style elements which define the character of the Wright Building include: the grid-like pattern of construction, including the five bays with segmental arches above the windows, vertical off-white glazed terra cotta pilasters with corbelled tops, and spandrels with bullnose details around the windows, pattern of fenestration, and dark-brown glazed terra cotta string course
- other significant features include: brown terra cotta medallions at the top of each of the outer four pilasters, circular mosaic entrance floors, and tin ceiling and metal mouldings in entrances
- pattern of retail entrances
- continued residential use of the upper storeys