Habitat Forum, a public gathering associated with the 1976 United Nations Habitat Conference on Human Settlements, was held inside Second World War aircraft hangars on Jericho Beach on Vancouver's west side.
Fifty years ago, some of the world’s leading experts in cities, housing and human rights arrived in Vancouver for a United Nations conference on how to house a growing world population, the first conference on human settlements.
From May 31 to June 11, Vancouver hosted Habitat 76, with more than 2,000 delegates from 140 countries. Headlining speakers included architect Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome, economist Barbara Ward, anthropologist Margaret Mead, Mother Teresa, architect Paolo Soleri, Colombian ambassador to the United Nations, Enrique Penalosa Camargo, and Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Thousands flocked to the two-week forum, held at now-demolished military hangars along Jericho Beach. A far more formal UN event was held simultaneously at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
Habitat 76 happened long before Vancouver became a hotbed of property speculation. Back then, the city was better known as the home of Greenpeace and progressive planning projects such as False Creek South. A mere decade later, Expo 86 would pivot entirely away from the idealism of Habitat and change the course of the region, according to urbanism experts. And Habitat 76 would be mostly forgotten, overshadowed by the more glamorous Expo 86.
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University of B.C. history professor Eagle Glassheim was a kid living in the U.S. at the time, but after a walking tour of the old Habitat forum site a few years ago, he started taking his history majors to the UBC archives to study Habitat 76 material, and embarked on his own research. He is the co-organizer of the UBC symposium open to the public, Habitat: 50 Years of Transforming Cities in Canada and the World, to be held Oct. 21 and 22, featuring Habitat 76 participants, NGO leaders, planners and leaders from the UN-Habitat. Last year, UN-Habitat opened an office in Montreal.
“There was a growing emphasis on the idea of housing as a human right, and that was really, crucially, it was central to the discussions and recommendations of the Habitat conference in 1976 and remains even more relevant and important today,” said Prof. Glassheim.
Children seated on top of a carved wooden sculpture. Eventually, Habitat 76 would be mostly forgotten, overshadowed by the more glamorous Expo 86.Supplied
A big topic at Habitat, he said, was capturing value from density for the public good. Vancouver had already built its share of co-op housing and government-funded affordable housing, so it was something of a model for the topics being discussed.
“Affordable housing has only gotten worse in our part of the world, and many other parts, and many solutions, or ideas or approaches were tried a little bit, but really lost favour not just in Vancouver and Canada but around the world by the late 70s and early 80s,” said Prof. Glassheim. “And Expo 86 was a very different understanding of what this kind of international moment for Vancouver might achieve when it came to housing.”
Lindsay Brown, a writer and activist, is writing a book about Habitat 76 and has been researching the legacy of the event for several years. She spoke at the UN’s recent World Urban Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan. Ms. Brown said British economist Barbara Ward had warned attendees at Habitat 76 against building cities based on land speculation. The UN’s Vancouver Declaration, which came out of the event, took a hard line and radical approach against speculative property buying. That document was ignored as the Western world entered a period when public housing programs fell by the wayside, values soared and affordability entered crisis mode.
Hangar 7 at Habitat Forum in 1976. Several attendees of Habitat went on to shape the planning of the city, says Penny Gurstein, former director of UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning.Supplied
“I’m writing the book because the irony is that Vancouver has its name on the Vancouver Declaration, which is an extremely radical document, and then went on to become the most unaffordable city in the world, one of the most unfair cities in the world, by building itself on speculation,” said Ms. Brown.
“The Vancouver Declaration was proposing that any spending on infrastructure, like say, the Broadway subway, any spending on any land left around that expenditure and public investment should be returned to the public purse.
“So effectively, you couldn’t speculate at all, and this created unbelievable furor. … The real estate and business lobby across Canada were furious, and in the end the language actually got a bit watered down.”
With Expo 86, she said, “We poured fuel on speculation. And now here we are.”
Penny Gurstein, former director of UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning, attended Habitat 76 as a young architecture student. She said the event made her see the role of an architect as more than just designing buildings, but also shaping urban life.
“You really felt that there was this kind of world awakening,” said Ms. Gurstein. “Canada was conceived of as a country that really could bring people together.”
Pierre Trudeau carrying Justin Trudeau on his shoulders, with Al Clapp and Paul Manning, in 1976.Supplied
Several attendees of Habitat went on to shape the planning of the city, she added, including former chief urban designer Ralph Segal. They’ve also put their names to several public letters written to the government in the last year, regarding housing policies.
Habitat 76 had other legacies. With the help of promoter and organizer Al Clapp, the hangars were repurposed and transformed into beautiful spaces with murals by Bill Reid and rebuilt interior spaces. Unfortunately, the hangar with the Reid mural on the exterior was torn down shortly after the event. But Mr. Clapp was also largely responsible for another 70s creation, Granville Island, said Ms. Brown.
Michael Hooper, associate professor of community and regional planning and co-organizer of the upcoming UBC symposium, said Habitat 76 was noteworthy because of the huge success of a community-led forum that drew thousands of people, including kids from schools on field trips. Everybody pitched in to make the forum a success, and the public got to debate ideas. It wasn’t a top-down event run by officials. He’s learned from working on other UN projects that it’s difficult to harness that kind of energy, even though the issues remain the same.
Visitors enter Habitat Forum grounds on July 1, 1976. Capturing value from density for the public good was a big topic at Habitat, according to University of B.C. history professor Eagle Glassheim.Supplied
“If you look at the discourse around urbanization and housing in Canada right now, and the themes being discussed at the formal proceedings and Habitat forum, they are uncannily similar,” said Prof. Hooper. “There is a somewhat dispiriting component to that, in that we have obviously resolved few, if any, of those things that were burning in people’s minds at Habitat forum, and are burning in our minds now.
“For example, Gregor Robertson, [Minister of Housing and Infrastructure], if you listen to his speeches, there’s a lot of discussion about modular housing. And actually, one of the big themes at Habitat forum was modular housing and the different ways of using appropriate technology and simple technology to solve the housing crisis of that era.
“And we’re kind of treating this as if we’ve suddenly discovered modular housing. Habitat forum, one thing it can teach us is there is this deep history that we need to learn from, the positives and the failures of the past. That’s really where we want to go with this symposium.”