Description of Historic Place

The Chrysler Building is a very large one-storey industrial warehouse building fronted by an office wing set far back from a major arterial road in south Vancouver near the Fraser River. It is designed in a late Art Moderne/International style of modernism and dates from 1955-56.

Heritage Value

The Chrysler Building, formerly the Chrysler Canada Parts Distribution Centre, is an important aspect of Vancouver’s industrial history and represents a post-World War II expression of modern architecture in the southern part of the city. Surrounded by highway-oriented retail stores, car dealerships, industrial operations, fast food restaurants and gas stations, the building represents one of the last phases in the evolution of the Fraser River’s transition from forest to farmland at the turn of the 20th century, gradually becoming industrial in use, with numerous sawmills and steel plants by mid century. To the north of Marine Drive, a mix of small-scale residential dwellings and apartment buildings are part of what was once the eastern edge of the community of Marpole.

The deep setback and broad front lawn of the building presents a strong presence to SW Marine Drive and enhances its visibility and prominence. The setback, symmetry and formal, yet restrained, modernism of the building and siting speaks to importance of Chrylser as an industrial entity, one of the Big Three automakers in North America. With this, their western regional office and parts distribution warehouse, the desire to create an impressive, yet conservative, presence in the community is evident. The front door is on axis with the long sidewalk from Marine Drive and the doorway is emphasized by being set in a stone surround and being centred in a projecting frontispiece. This strong presence was further highlighted by the giant scale of the 3’6” high stainless steel "CHRYSLER" letters above the main entrance (now removed). Mature street trees frame the site and contribute to the corporate formality of the site.

The building’s architecture is a conservative modernist composition of strong horizontality and linearity, rendered in brick with stone trim. With its streamlined modernism, it is related more to the late Art Moderne style than the more structurally expressive International style. A single band of strip windows of aluminum with stone trim and a strong central projecting frontispiece with stone surrounds mark the powerful north facade facing the large lawn north of the building. There is a deft hand in the design of the transition from the sobriety of broad brick mass of the office section to the vast warehouse block to the rear, with its crisp delineation of clear upper clerestory glazing - relating to the steel truss structure of this wing - and its brick base.

Designed as the parts warehouse and regional offices for Chrysler Corporation of Canada (later Chrysler Canada Corp. and now Daimler Chrysler), the architect was William R. Souter and Associates, Architects of Hamilton, Ontario, with associated architects McCarter Nairne & Partners of Vancouver. Souter’s firm had a long history in Hamilton, designing schools, churches, banks, and large residences, including several buildings at McMaster University and the General Motors Assembly Plant in Oshawa (1927). While the contribution of each firm to the building design is uncertain, McCarter Nairne & Partners were one of Vancouver’s notable and profilic architectural firms, whose Vancouver General Post Office on West Georgia Street (1953-58) is contemporary with the Chrysler building. An expansion of the warehouse section at the Chysler building was designed in 1965 by Giffels Associates Consulting Engineers of Toronto and Windsor, Ontario.

Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Chrysler Building’s Art Moderne/International architectural design include:

- its location on Southwest Marine Drive, an area characterized by its highway-oriented retail stores, automobile dealerships, and industrial buildings
- industrial form and wide one-storey massing, expressed by the brick-clad elevations
- aluminum windows in long horizontal banding
- clerestory glazing along east and west elevation
- brick wall cladding with stone trim and detailing
- broad front lawn and deep setback from Southwest Marine Drive
- mature street trees
- axial alignment of sidewalk, front door and facade frontispiece
- long, low, linear single-storey expression