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The Marine Building is a skyscraper located at 355 Burrard Street in Downtown Vancouver, Canada near the Financial District. Completed in 1930, at the time of its opening it was the city's tallest skyscraper and it is listed among the best Art Deco buildings in the world. The History of Metropolitan Vancouver: The Marine Building It owes its name to the plethora of fine marine-themed ornaments that decorate it. Because of its architecture and interior decorations, the building has been chosen as the setting of a number of film and television productions. The Marine Building's Art-Deco "Aquatecture"
The building was completed on 7 October 1930. At (22 floors) it was the tallest skyscraper in the city until 1939. According to the architects, McCarter & Nairne, the building was intended to evoke "some great crag rising from the sea, clinging with sea flora and fauna, tinted in sea-green, touched with gold."Cited in Harold Kalman, Exploring Vancouver: Ten Tours of the City and its Buildings. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1974, 101. The building cost $2.3 million to build – $1.1 million over budget—but due to the Great Depression it was sold to the Guinness family of Ireland for only $900,000. The 2023 property assessment is $153 million.
There was an observation deck, but during the depression in the 1930s the 25-cent admission price proved unaffordable for most. Currently, there are no public galleries in the building.
Inside the massive brass-doored the walls are inlaid with 12 varieties of local . All over the walls and polished brass doors are depictions of sea snails, skate, crabs, turtles, carp, scallops, seaweed and sea horses, as well as the transportation means of the era. The floor presents the zodiac signs. The exterior is studded with flora and fauna, tinted in sea-green and touched with gold.
During a renovation from 1982-1989 to update the electrical, mechanical and air-conditioning systems, the "battleship linoleum" (imported from Scotland) in the lobby was replaced with marble. The former Merchant Exchange was also gutted, and is now a restaurant called Tractor Foods. This building was also the management centre for Oneworld, of one of the three largest airline alliances in the world, from its founding in May 2000 until it was relocated to New York City in June 2011.
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