Description of Historic Place

The Skinner Block is a five-storey plus basement masonry structure dating from the Late Victorian era, located mid-block on the north side of West Hastings Street within the context of other commercial buildings of similar age and scale. Like the adjacent buildings along the Hastings Street commercial corridor, the Skinner Block was built for retail purposes, with large storefront display windows.

Heritage Value

Built in 1898 at the height of the Klondike boom, the heritage value of the Skinner Block lies in its progressive architectural style. This was one of the first buildings in Vancouver to feature the design elements of the Classical Revival style that was becoming increasingly popular in the eastern United States and Canada at the end of the nineteenth century.

The success of the Great White City at the 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago initiated a craze for classicism that soon spread across North America, replacing the picturesque styles of the Victorian era. The early appearance of this new style was an expression of Vancouver’s commercial vitality. The Classical influence was exhibited in the tripartite front facade articulation, with a base of two storeys ornamented with a cornice separating the storeys above, a vertically expressed mid-section that is substantially glazed with distinctively proportioned windows, and a projecting cornice at the parapet.

Although this style would be commonplace in a few years, the Skinner Block was avant-garde at the time of its construction. William Tinniswood Dalton (1854-1931) was the architect for this striking building, and prominent local builder Edward Cook was responsible for its construction. Notably, these two men, with Dalton as supervising architect and Cook as contractor, had just completed their work on the innovative McClary Manufacturing Company Building in Gastown, designed in 1897 by the prominent eastern Canadian firm of Moore and Henry and one of the first buildings in Vancouver to start the transition away from the Victorian styles.

Additionally, the Skinner Block is significant as an important component of the early retail and commercial fabric that made West Hastings Street one of the most prominent commercial streets in the early history of Vancouver. The promotion of land sales in this area as an alternative to the original Granville Townsite provided the stimulation for the early commercial development of West Hastings Street. This building was noted in the newspapers of the time as marking the 'tendency of trade to gravitate towards Hastings Street, the handsomest street in the city.'

So many buildings were under construction in Vancouver in the summer of 1898 that this project was temporarily suspended due to the scarcity of building materials. Owned by Robert Burns Skinner and Frederick Buscombe, the building was built for the Jas. A. Skinner Company, a wholesale china and glassware business. Internally, there was a series of mezzanines that allowed for the display of the company's high quality merchandise.

Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Skinner Block include its:
- siting in an area of historic commercial buildings on Hastings Street
- contribution to the streetscape as part of an unbroken streetwall with continuous retail storefronts
- commercial form, scale and massing, as exhibited by its five-storey height and symmetrical, rectangular plan
- flat roof with horizontal raised front parapet and projecting sheet metal cornice with modillion detailing and brackets
- masonry construction, as expressed by its pressed brick front walls and common red brick side and rear walls
- additional exterior features, such as the decorative glazing pattern in the three registers of windows on the facade, horizontal spandrel panels, window mullions detailed as pilasters, and loading door at the rear