Old Town Design Guidelines - Victoria

Chinatown – Special CharacteristicsPreserve heritage value by responding to the special characteristics of ChinatownHeritage ValueVictoria’s Chinatown, a formally recognized National HistoricSite, is valued as the oldest surviving and continuously usedChinatown in Canada. This historic place is a document ofthe emergence of the Chinese-Canadian in Victoria andCanada-wide. The early history of Chinese immigration toCanada when thousands of men came to British Columbia inthe nineteenth century seeking gold, or work in coal minesand logging camps, and on the construction of the CanadianPacific Railway - is evident in the physical attributes of thishistoric district. The variety of buildings in this area, includingmercantile houses, cultural associations and temples, createsunique streetscapes which illustrate the perseverance ofthe Chinese community in the face of cultural exclusion.The labyrinth of off-grid alleyways within Chinatown remindus of the intensity of the former land-use and are valued forthe way their exotic quality distinguishes the area from otherparts of the city. The architecture of Chinatown is valuedas a largely complete illustration of the growth of a distinctChinese-Canadian culture in Canada. Buildings dating tothe nineteenth century, and possessing typically Victorianelements of design, represent the influence of British order overthe foreign population. Buildings constructed in the twentiethcentury illustrate a distinctly Chinese architectural vocabulary,indicative of the growth and increased strength of the Chinesecommunity within itself prior to the First World War.Special Characteristics• the sense of place attributable to Chinese-Canadiancommercial activities such as groceries and restaurants;the prolific use of primary colours alongside various typesof signs including neon• the fine grain of the area derived from the scale and massof the buildings ranging from 3 to 5 storeys, and includingthe off-grid path network and intimate scale of alleywaysand courtyards within clusters of buildings• densely packed buildings on blocks comprising a streetfrontage of a mixture of very wide and very narrowcommercial buildings• the construction materials, such as brick, attributable to theera before the First World War• the juxtaposition of traditional architectural styles with laterChinese-style buildings• Chinese cultural characteristics manifested in sucharchitectural details as storefront mezzanines, recessedbalconies, decorative wrought ironwork, upturned eavesand tile roofs, and Asian-style ornamentation.Chinatown buildings have a very different character tothe waterfront and commercial core. They are a fusionof nineteenth-century Chinese and westerncommercial architectural languages.Design Guidelines – Old Town, Victoria, B.C. 9