Vancouver's Hong Kong-style supermodern aesthetic: The architecture and public art of the Concord Pacific Place urban mega-project

Concord Pacific Place, a glass wall of tall, thin condominium towers lining the north shore of Vancouver's False Creek, is an urban mega-project being developed on the former Expo '86 lands sold to Hong Kong property magnate Li Ka-shing in 1988. This study examines the local, provincial, federal, and Hong Kong-based cultural, economic, social, and political conditions implicated in the production of Concord Pacific Place and how the mega-project's architecture and artworks refer to these conditions. This thesis argues that Concord Pacific espoused a high-tech self-image as a strategy to challenge the local perception of the mega-project as a Hong Kong-funded development for Hong Kong buyers. This study illustrates how the site's Supermodern architecture and some of its artworks overtly emphasize that the space is a high-tech community and also subtly allude to Chinese transnationality by using inconspicuous references intended to be detected only by Concord Pacific's Hong Kong consumers.