Body Heat: The Story of the Woodward’s Redevelopment

In 1903 Charles Woodward expanded his mail order catalog service into a department store called Woodward’s. By the mid 1950’s, Woodward’s had defined one-stop shopping in Vancouver. The Woodward’s 1993 closure intensified the sense of dispossession in the Downtown Eastside, a neighborhood long-affected by poverty, homelessness, and drug addiction. Currently in the last months of construction, the redevelopment of Woodward’s is designed by Henriquez Partners as a complex of multi-use buildings, offering significant urban spaces, integrating market and social housing, and making an optimistic claim for inclusion – one that may be seen as a model in its quest to become home for a heterogeneous array of culture. Body Heat tells the story of this redevelopment. The book features 20 interviews of key participants in this project. It also includes a myriad of images, historical photographs and memorabilia, amazing construction photographs, contextual documentary photography, and architectural drawings.