Taizo Yamamoto: Carts, Hedges, Lions

Exquisitely detailed drawings offer a “field guide” to ubiquitous but overlooked elements of Vancouver’s urban landscape. Three series of intricate graphite drawings depict, with arresting realism, real-world examples of assembled, grown, and built objects common to distinct milieus of Vancouver: the shopping carts piled high with belongings that clatter along sidewalks in the downtown core; the long, high hedges that insulate single-family homes from the din of arterial traffic; and the sculptural lions placed for good luck atop fenceposts in front of many homes, especially on the city’s east side. In creating snapshots and then laborious drawings of these objects, Taizo Yamamoto, the principal of Yamamoto Architecture, was driven by a fascination with how the recurrence of these seemingly mundane objects speaks to omnipresent issues of housing unaffordability, densification, and the aspirations of diasporic communities—concerns that have an uneasy relationship to celebrated narratives of Vancouver but play a prominent role in residents’ everyday lives. To this work he brings not just sustained careful attention but an architect’s eye for details both structural and textural, resulting in immersive, richly nuanced drawings. New essays and fiction from three authors engages the work through prose: Aaron Peck, author of Jeff Wall: North & West (2015), interprets the shopping cart drawings as an appreciation of “ephemeral architecture” and sees affinities to work by Walker Evans and Hilda and Bernd Becher; a short story by Giller Prize–nominated author Kevin Chong (The Double Life of Benson Yu, 2023) imagines the lives behind the hedges; and Jackie Wong, senior editor of The Tyee, reports on the origin, production, and symbolism of the many lions dotting the city.

About the Author :
Taizo Yamamoto was born in North Vancouver in 1975, the youngest of three siblings. His parents immigrated to Canada in the 1960s, his mother from East Germany and his father from Japan. Taizo began drawing at an early age, sketching on rolls of trace paper provided by his father, Tomizo, a practicing architect. Taizo completed an architecture degree at McGill University and interned at Peterson Architects in San Francisco before moving to New York City to work for Schwartz Architects, where he participated in the competition for the redesign of Ground Zero as part of Team THINK with Schwartz Architects, Rafael Vinoly Architects, and Shigeru Ban. In 2003, Taizo returned to Vancouver to take over his father’s architectural practice, and resumed drawing, beginning with the Shopping Cart series. His artwork has since appeared in numerous national and international publications and exhibitions, and Yamamoto Architecture has grown from a staff of three to over thirty. Taizo lives in East Vancouver with his wife, who is a furniture designer, and their cat. Kevin Chong is the author of seven books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently the novel The Double Life of Benson Yu, which was a finalist for the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize and named a Best Book of Canadian Fiction by the CBC. His creative nonfiction and journalism have recently appeared in Time, Literary Hub, Montecristo, and the Globe and Mail. An associate professor at UBC Okanagan, he lives in Vancouver with his family. Aaron Peck is the author of Jeff Wall: North & West, Letters to the Pacific, and The Bewilderments of Bernard Willis. Over the years, he has been a regular contributor at several contemporary art magazines, has written catalogue essays, and given talks at museums. He currently writes for Aperture and the Times Literary Supplement. Jackie Wong is a writer and editor. She has published journalism on housing, racial equity issues and drug policy, and personal essays on city life and our relationships with each other. Jackie works as a senior editor for The Tyee, an online news magazine for B.C. She lives in Vancouver with her family.

Review :
"Gorgeous and detailed" North by Northwest "A thoughtful meditation on class, race and life in the city" The Tyee