Granville Island
Vancouver, BC
2010.07.18
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Granville Island is a peninsula and shopping district in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is located in False Creek directly across from Downtown Vancouver’s peninsula, under the south end of the Granville Street Bridge.
Granville Island was once an industrial manufacturing area, but is now a major tourist destination, providing amenities such as a public market, a large marina, a hotel, the Emily Carr University of Art and Design (named in honour of the artist), Arts Umbrella, False Creek Community Centre, various theatres including the Arts Club Theatre Company and Carousel Theatre, and variety of shopping areas. There are two industrial areas remaining from the Island’s heyday: a machine shop and cement plant. The island is very popular with tourists and locals alike.
Since its redevelopment in the 1970s, Granville Island has maintained a healthy community of craft studios, including: a Glassblowing studio, two Co-op Printmaking studios, a Fine Art Print Studio, a Luthier, a master saké maker, various Jewellers, the B.C. Potter’s Guild Gallery, The Crafthouse Gallery, The Circle Craft shop, art galleries, boatbuilders, a Wood Co-op Shop, Woodworkers studios and so on. A weekly Farmer’s Market has been ongoing since the early 1990’s – this was the first contemporary Farmer’s Market in Vancouver.
Granville Island Brewing Co. is also the name of a beer company which originated on Granville Island in 1984, but whose main base of operations was moved to Kelowna, British Columbia some time later. In 2009 it was purchased by Molson’s Brewery and continues to brew small batches of its varieties at the original site, and offers beer-tasting and tours of their brewing facilities.
In 2004, Project for Public Spaces named Granville Island "One of the World’s Great Places".
