About the Stamp:
From the Canada Post Site:
Majestic snow-capped mountains and striking verdant vistas provide an idealistic setting for one of Canada's finest universities—the University of British Columbia (UBC). This institution of advanced learning has also earned an excellent reputation internationally. In 2006, for instance, Newsweek magazine listed UBC as 27th in its ranking of the World's 50 Top Universities. For the past four years, UBC has also been among the top 40 institutes in the world as ranked by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Although this very remarkable university turns 100 years old in 2008, its modest beginnings predate the turn of the 20th century. On April 26, 1890, An Act Respecting the University of British Columbia was passed "to establish one University for the whole of British Columbia for the purpose of raising the standard of higher education in the Province, and of enabling all denominations and classes to obtain academic degrees."
Surprisingly, in the years that followed the 1890 act, British Columbia's only public university education was actually offered by an institution located thousands of miles away—Montréal's McGill University. The affiliation was made possible by the Public School Act Amendment of 1894, which enabled any high school district to partner with an eastern Canadian university. It was not until 1908, and An Act to Establish and Incorporate a University for the Province of British Columbia that the foundation was established for what is today's UBC.
On March 7, 2008, Canada Post will celebrate UBC's centenary by issuing a domestic rate (52¢) stamp featuring the Walter C. Koerner Library—an impressive and prominent structure that's located in the middle of the campus. The school's colours figure prominently on the stamp. The building is rendered in blue, while "UBC" appears in golden yellow. The university's coat of arms features both colours.
"To many people, the library represents the heart of the university, which is one of the reasons we chose this particular building," says Susan Mavor of Vancouver's Metaform Communication Design. "The library's interesting multi-levelled facade also worked very well with our design—a 3-D graphic illustration treatment."
"Both of the university stamps featured in this issue of Details, sport a different more modernized look compared to previously issued school-themed stamps," says Alain Leduc, Manager of Stamp Design and Production at Canada Post. "The University of Alberta and The University of British Columbia stamps will also be showcased together on a gutter strip—one of Canada Post's newest and most popular products."
About the Building:
From the UBC website on the Walter C. Koerner Library:
Design: Architectura in collaboration with Arthur Erickson
Official opening: March 10, 1997
Area: 17,200 square metres
Capacity of stacks: 800,000 volumes
Study space: 920 individual carrels, plus rooms for group study
Cost: $24 million dollars
In 1991, the area immediately to the west of the underground Sedgewick Undergraduate Library was confirmed as the site for Walter C. Koerner Library.
Construction began in January 1995. Sedgewick/Koerner continued to operate, maintaining most library services. The two underground floors of Sedgewick were renovated and upgraded to current library and safety standards. These two levels were extended on the west to become the base of the new construction between Old Administration, Mathematics, and the Math Annex.
The Walter C. Koerner Library opened officially on March 10, 1997. The new construction extends five stories above the level of the mall. The new design, while classical in order and structure, is modern in material and technology, with a central entry on axis with the Main Library and a tripartite vertical organization into base, body, and attic.
The base is composed of a battered granite wall, complementing the materials of the Main Library. The granite is from the same quarry as the granite used on the Main Library. There is a course of clerestory windows and a continuous planter above.
On the front façade, the three mid levels are sheathed in a flush plane of glass shielded by a system of external glass screens. The transparency of these levels allows the building to 'read' as a library and permits the maximum amount of appropriately screened daylight into the building.
Level seven, the classical attic, is set back from the levels below. This level is finished in a sloping natural zinc roof. Zinc is a soft grey material that weathers and ages well. This is also the major material of the side elevations.
The back façade is clad in stucco with a grid of diamond-shaped windows. The central nave is top-lit by a shallow vault of translucent glass.
Walter C. Koerner Library totals 17,200 square metres: 7,000 square metres of new construction and 10,200 square metres of renovated space from Sedgewick Library.
Functions within the building are composed of 54% for collections (6,420 shelving units for an approximate total of 800,000 volumes), 25% for service and offices, and 21% for 920 study spaces.
Funding was through donations to UBC's World of Opportunity Campaign, with matching funds from the provincial government and the President's discretionary funds. It is named in honour of Walter C. Koerner, recognizing his lifetime commitment to and support of the University and the Library and his substantial gift toward the construction of Koerner Library.