Art & Design
Coquitlam Centre was recognized for its impressive design elements, most notably its stained glass windows. The Columbian Newspaper quoted Young as saying that the $3 million in extra features at the mall are its major distinguishing points from other such centres. These include a unique computerized air conditioning system, 1000 tropical plants and trees, 20 works of sculpture, and one of the world’s largest modern stained glass windows.
(Columbian Newspaper, December 13, 1978)
Still in place today, the impressive stained glass panels in the roof of Coquitlam Centre were the crown jewel of the mall project. The panels are ten feet wide and run the length of the mall along one side of the roof’s apex. In 1978, the developers pronounced that the stained-glass panels, being manufactured in Vancouver, will be the largest in the world.
(Columbian Newspaper, December 13, 1978)
The finished product included two hundred glass panels that cover seven thousand square feet. The stained-glass cost close to $350,000 to design, produce, and install. On the eve of Coquitlam Centre’s opening in 1979, the Columbian Newspaper wrote:
The windows were designed by BC Artists Ray Friend, Anna Gustafson, and Lutz Haufschild, and were fabricated by the specialists at Granville Glass. Ray Friend’s creation for Woodward’s court, an abstract design of billowing cloud-like forms, transforms the floor below into pools of pastel shapes. Anna Gustafson’s mosaic of brilliant colours accents Eaton’s court with light that pours through 6,500 separate pieces of glass, only five inches square. The Bay court is filled with light flowing through Lutz Haufschild’s beautiful flowing designs.
(Columbian Newspaper, August 14, 1979)
In addition to the magnificent windows, twenty works of sculpture by local artists were placed throughout the mall. In addition to the art pieces, the mall interior was adorned with lush tropical plants imported from Florida. The Columbian Newspaper reported that the mall contained 110 tropical trees and 800 to 900 plants,
including rubber, weeping fig, Indian laurel, cocoa palms, and screw pines.
(Columbian Newspaper, August 14, 1969)
External landscaping included 4.7 acres planted with trees and 11,000 square feet seeded with other plants. There were 962 trees of various sizes, 12,250 shrubs and 59,165 other plants in the grounds. (Columbian Newspaper, August 14, 1969)