In Vancouver, a city with one of the highest housing costs in North America, real estate developers have become the new patrons of public art. The Golden Tree, a monumental sculpture by Douglas Coupland, recently installed in the plaza of Intracorp’s new James Cheng-designed tower MC2, is a zeitgeisty exploration of real estate as a new gold rush. This 43 ft high, gold-finished mirror image replica of the beloved 800-year-old “hollow tree”—a Western Red Cedar stump in Vancouver’s Stanley Park—is a fitting monument for the logging town turned globalised resort city for the wealthy. The fibreglass, resin and steel sculpture channels the hologramme of disappearing forests, offset by a large glass façade displaying an image of Stanley Park evergreens. Coupland “bonded” with the hollow tree two decades ago, when drunk joyriders stole his car and left it parked inside the landmark stump. The artist calls his sculptural rendition “an orgasmic point of Vancouver real estate”, noting that the hand-finished gold exterior “taps into Chinese notions of luck and prosperity”.
The work has already become a selfie magnet, and is poised to become a new civic beacon. “I think it takes us from one century to the next,” says Coupland.
