From miniature city to beautifying provincial and national capitals.
"1939::17-Year-Old Roderick Clack in His City of Alanville"Â
Photo Clip: Victoria Daily Times (1939)Â
Victoria, British Columbia
In 1933, a foundation was laid for one of the most intriguing coastal cities in the Pacific Northwest. The city of Alanville, designed to accessorize an electric toy railway line, was the vision of 12-year-old schoolboy Roderick Clack of Victoria, British Columbia. It started out as a crude arrangement of cardboard houses scattered about a track. But as Clack continued to build, plan, and revise, something extraordinary began to develop. By 1936, the little toy railroad town named for his younger brother had grown to the size of a miniature city, occupying 154 square feet of his parents' 179-square-foot basement in James Bay. By 1939, the world he had built with cardboard, pieces of glass, coloured sponges, and slivers of wood had grown to the size of a miniature metropolis.
"1936::Alan of Alanville"Â
Photo Clip: Victoria Daily Times (1936)Â
Victoria, British Columbia
At 17, Clack's passion for architecture was evident in the details. Everything about Alanville had been perfectly scaled at five feet to one inch, making it a formidable place for its guests to explore. Miniature pedestrians strolled about its beautifully designed business district, where modern buildings towered around a fine harbour and street lamps illuminated their way. Railroad crossings with red flashing lights brought finely detailed trucks and automobiles to a halt as the train zoomed past on its way to an elaborate train station. A warm glow emanated from the firelit windows of elegantly constructed homes in a nearby residential neighbourhood, reminiscent of the Uplands in Victoria. The Alanville cathedral, an exceptionally gracious building with flying buttresses and delicately tinted stained glass windows, stood tall among the trees as the only piece of original architecture. Every skyscraper, bank, fire hall, shipping dock, train station, gas station and residence was a miniature replica of a real-life structure in North America, with details down to its elevators, mail chutes and rooftop air conditioning system, all scaled to perfection. Alanville's newspaper, The Right of Way, featured the city's newest buildings and a list of construction sites with notices of temporary road closures or detours. It was distributed regularly to anyone who had personally visited the great city in the basement and signed its Visitor's Guestbook.
"If you scale down [the train's] speed it comes to about 150 miles an hour when the power is turned on full, and that's ridiculous." -Young Roderick Clack, on scaling down even the speed of Alanville's train.
"1956::A New Firm and a New Motel"
Clip: Victoria Daily Times (1956) Victoria, British Columbia
Roderick Clack, born in Winnipeg and raised in Victoria, was educated at Victoria College in Craigdarroch Castle and later at the University of British Columbia (UBC). At the outbreak of war, however, he put his education on hold to enlist with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was sent overseas and was flying Wellington and Halifax bombers across war-torn Europe when he suddenly fell ill with pneumonia. He was transferred to London to recover and fell in love with his nurse, whom he married shortly before his return to Canada. In 1953, Clack graduated with a degree in Architecture and Urban Design. He spent the next several years in a partnership firm designing award-winning buildings on Vancouver Island and the lower mainland, many of which still stand today. In 1957, his firm sold out to a competing Vancouver architect and disbanded while at the top of its game. It had won more local, provincial and national design awards than any other firm in the city. Before the end of the year, Clack had taken on Victoria's first official City Planner position and was tasked with developing a Downtown Improvement Plan, what he called the awakening of Victoria.
"1958::Victoria's Broad Street Pedestrian Mall"
Clip: Victoria Daily Times (1958)
Victoria, British Columbia
Clack had a big job ahead. He began his new appointment by revisiting a concept laid before the council two years earlier when California engineers were consulted about Victoria's unique traffic issues. They had suggested that Douglas Street be closed to vehicular traffic to become a pedestrian shopping area. Clack felt it was the right idea but the wrong street and recommended that instead of Douglas Street, Broad Street, between Broughton and View Street, could become a most attractive open-space shopping area. And besides, restricting Broad Street to pedestrian traffic would align well with his big-picture revitalization plan. Clack created a sketch of his vision for Victorians to consider and received an overwhelming response in favour of the idea. His Broad Street sketch went national after being featured as the spring cover piece in the official publication of the Community Planning Association of Canada (CPAC).
"Clack's sketch is the subject of quite a few interesting comments from Canadian communities." -Eric Beecroft (1958), CPAC National Director in Ottawa
"1962-2023::Victoria's City Hall Extension and Centennial Square"
Photo Clip (left): Victoria Daily Times (1962)
Photo Credits: Bill Halkett (left) Google Earth 2023 (right)
After weathering the Great Depression and two world wars, the mayor and city council's biggest concern was, above all else, Victoria's revitalization plan. They somehow had to breathe life back into their sleepy city. They devised a plan to tear down the aging City Hall and rebuild a new one on Cathedral Hill where today's courthouse now stands, but the idea came with an enormous price tag. Instead, they decided to clean up the old City Hall and add a new extension for additional office space. The new Civic Precinct Plan was the affordable alternative approved by the council for Victoria's 100th Birthday Celebration.
"1962::Clack's Sketch for the New Civic Precinct Plan"
Clip: Victoria Daily Times (1962)
Victoria, British Columbia
The plan got underway. Cormorant Street was closed at Douglas Street, and Pandora Ave was rerouted to tie in with Cormorant Street at Government Street. They saved what buildings they could and demolished the ones they couldn't. Their demise created enough space to construct Victoria's new Centennial Square, featuring a welcoming plaza with a specially designed fountain to honour Canada's 100th Birthday Celebration. It was a plan that aligned well with the Broad Street Pedestrian Mall and, ultimately, the big picture.
"1963::A Downtown Paint-Up Facelift"
Photo Clip: Victoria Daily Times (1963)
Victoria, British Columbia
It began with a coat of paint. The mayor had Clack pick out a two-tone colour scheme to clean up City Hall in the interim while construction was underway. The idea had immediate results. Victorians loved the new look and were now more on board with the city's clean-up project than ever before. Business owners began sprucing up their downtown storefronts with free colour advice from City Hall and paint donated by a local manufacturer. The results were inspiring. Civic and Business officials walked the streets with their fellow Victorians, admiring downtown's fresh paint. The life they thought was lost was slowly being restored. Their excitement would help with the big picture's next challenge: Bastion Square.
"1972::Victoria's Revitalized Bastion Square Showing Burnes House and the Old Courthouse"
Photo Clip: The Ottawa Citizen (1972)
Ottawa, Ontario
Bastion Square, one of Victoria's most historical areas, had evolved into a dark corridor of warehouses over the years and had been slated for restoration. What exactly could be done to save it was the big unanswered question. The provincial government suggested they would contribute to the cost of restoring the old courthouse at the corner of Bastion and Langley Streets but backed away from the project at the last minute, pushing it back to square one. An idea was then afoot to tear down the old courthouse and the crumbling Burnes House to make way for a parkade. As luck would have it, the owner of the Burnes House died just as a deal to purchase his building was about to close. Not having much luck, the council considered acquiring the land by expropriation. But Clack and other concerned citizens who strongly opposed the parkade plan put up a fight and ultimately saved the buildings and the destruction of Bastion Square.
"The plan to locate a parking building in the centre of this district would probably remove forever any hope of restoring the area - at least from a historical standpoint." -Roderick Clack, on Bastion Square being turned into a parkade.
"1964::Victoria's Revitalized Bastion Square"
Photo Clip: Victoria Daily Times (1964)
Ottawa, Ontario
Clack and his assistant spent 150 hours building a model of his vision for Bastion Square. The old buildings would be restored and repurposed, and the open-area promenade would have freshly planted trees and a water feature to support its new maritime theme. But the city would have to complete the project without Clack.
"1939::Roderick Clack Reviewing Proposed Beautification Plans for the Nation's Capital"Â
Photo Clip: The Ottawa Citizen (1966)Â
Ottawa, Ontario
In 1965, Ottawa's Federal Centennial Committee contacted Victoria's City Hall, requesting they borrow Clack's extraordinary planning services on a six-month loan. Clack, unwilling to dig any deeper into the politics of the city he loved, used the opportunity to resign, promising the mayor he would make himself available to see the city's big projects through.
"1966::A Townscape Rediscovered"Â
Film Credit: (tbd)
After six months as Ottawa's Chief Planner, Clack was asked to extend his stay and see the country through its Centennial year. Clack willingly stayed and continued to share what he had learned at Victoria's City Hall, correlating information on civic planning and beautification as possible centennial projects for municipalities across Canada. His ideas were welcomed everywhere he went, and everywhere he went, a little bit of Victoria went along with him in a film called A Townscape Rediscovered.
"All of Canada is in debt to Victoria for its pioneer work in restoring and rehabilitating aging buildings of character. It is not pure chance that brought Victoria architect Roderick Clack to Ottawa as head of our community improvement and rural beautification project. If it could be done in Victoria, we thought it could be done across Canada." -John Fisher (1966), Commissioner of the Canada Confederation Centennial Commission
"1974::Clack Returns to Victoria for Inner Harbour Consultation"
Photo Clip: Victoria Times (1974)
Victoria, British Columbia
In 1974, Victoria sought Clack's advice regarding Inner Harbour concerns and borrowed him back from the federal government for his planning services. After a short visit to Victoria at their request, Clack submitted his recommendations in a report before returning to his position as Assistant General Manager and Director of Planning for Canada's National Capital Commission. In 1979, after winning international acclaim for Ottawa as a world-class Capital City, Clack accepted an invitation to spend time as an exchange planner in Canberra, Australia's national capital. He retired in 1983 and returned to Victoria, the city he loved most. In 2005, his eyesight began to fail, but his vision for Victoria remained firm, keeping local planning authorities and advisory boards seeking his thoughts and opinions about special projects. Clack died in 2007, and his obituary revealed that he had enjoyed model railroading through to the end of the line.
"I suppose I've always been a planner. I remember when I was 12 years old I drew my first plan for revising and revamping the area around the Inner Harbour. It gave me quite a thrill to see that basic plan revived." -Roderick Clack (1921-2007)
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