Marine Building
Seahorses, ships and waves climb its terracotta skin; its lobby glows like a temple of the sea. The Marine Building opened in October 1930, a million dollars over budget — and became the most beloved skyscraper in Canada.
At a glance
The Marine Building at 355 Burrard Street opened on 7 October 1930 as the headquarters of Vancouver’s shipping and marine trades, designed by the local firm McCarter & Nairne. Its curtain walls of pinkish-buff brick carry one of the richest Art Deco ornamental programmes anywhere: terracotta bas-reliefs in pink and green with gold highlights, teeming with marine flora and fauna, ships, trains and zeppelins — the whole technology of the age rendered as ocean myth. For years the tallest building in the city, it remains the benchmark against which Canadian Art Deco is measured.
Key facts
- Opened: 7 October 1930
- Architects: McCarter & Nairne
- Cost: $2.3 million — $1.1 million over budget
- Depression twist: Sold to the Guinness family for $900,000
- Facade: Pinkish-buff brick with pink-and-green terracotta bas-reliefs, gold highlights, marine flora and fauna
- Address: 355 Burrard Street, Vancouver
- GPS: 49.2875, −123.11694 — View on Google Maps
- Today: Working office building; the lobby is the city’s favourite interior
History
Conceived in the optimism of the late 1920s as the trading heart of a port city, the Marine Building was cursed by its own timing: it opened a year into the Great Depression, having cost $2.3 million against a $1.5 million budget, and its developers could not carry it. In 1933 the building went to the Guinness family of Ireland — the brewing dynasty, then investing heavily in British Columbia — for $900,000, less than half its construction cost. The family’s British Pacific Properties held it for decades while it anchored the harbour end of Burrard Street.
What the Depression could not devalue was the architecture. The building became Vancouver’s ceremonial interior — its lobby borrowed for weddings, films and television so often that it ranks among the most-filmed addresses in a city built on film production. Restored and maintained as prime office space, it has outlasted every taller neighbour’s claim to affection.
What you see
Approach from Burrard Street and read the entrance arch: terracotta waves roll around King Neptune’s domain of seahorses, crabs, turtles and carp, while panels up the facade carry steamships, locomotives, biplanes and airships — transport ancient and modern, rendered in pink, green and gold against the warm brick. The great brass-framed doorway leads into the lobby, conceived as a Mayan-flavoured temple of the sea: stained glass, inlaid zodiac floor, wooden elevator cabs with inlay work, and light fittings shaped like ships’ prows. The lobby is accessible during office hours and repays every minute spent looking up.
Practical information
- Working office building — the lobby is generally accessible on weekdays during business hours; be discreet
- The facade reliefs reward binoculars or a zoom lens; morning light favours the Burrard Street front
- Free to view; 20–30 minutes for facade and lobby
Getting there
The building stands at the harbour end of Burrard Street, two blocks from Waterfront Station (SkyTrain, SeaBus and West Coast Express) and across from the convention district at Canada Place. Every downtown transit line passes within five minutes on foot.
Nearby
- Vancouver City Hall — the city’s other Art Deco monument of 1936, across False Creek
- Canada Place and the harbourfront — the working port the building was built to serve
- Waterfront Station — the 1914 terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway
- Aldred Building, Montreal — Canada’s eastern Art Deco counterpart of 1931
Sources
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, “The Marine Building” — architects, dates, cost, Guinness sale
- Forbidden Vancouver / Eve Lazarus — construction history and Depression sale
- Wikipedia: “Marine Building” — facade materials and ornament
- Wikidata Q1326540 — coordinates
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