This book focuses on what is arguably the first significant piece of modern residential architecture in Western Canada: The BC Binning House. Still standing in West Vancouver as a National Historic Site, the house has influenced generations of architects and continues to do so until today. The structure is often thought to be the beginning of Canada's West Coast Modernism movement as it represents both the arrival of Modernist design principles and their inflection with local interests and conditions. But the house is much more than an important moment in the history of regional architecture,...

In 1950, a young Vancouver architectural apprentice was handed a small house project that his boss was too busy to take on. The apprentice, Ron Thom, took the simple plan and rectangular foundation that had been roughed in, and transformed it into a groundbreaking work of architecture that gained national fame. Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra, but using local wood and paying careful attention to its verdant oceanside setting, Thom created a landmark for the new architectural movement known as West Coast Modernism. The client, Dr. Harold Copp, was himself a trailblazer, the...