The Globe and Mail

An uncelebrated fact: West Vancouver was the test site for modern Canadian architecture. A colony of modernism grew up there, provoked by the landscape -- the steep angles of the land, the forests of towering hemlocks and cedars -- and the brazen ideas of its local design heroes: Bert Binning, Ron Thom and Arthur Erickson. The seeds of modernism were scattered in West Van as early as 1941. But, for the past couple of decades, all has been quiet. Enter Patkau Architects: The firm's startling design for a new community centre has put the sleepy town back on the architecture map.