B. C. Binning

[4] Binning invited Richard Neutra, one of the leading architects in the Modernism movement in California, to lecture in Vancouver in 1949 and 1953.

[5] He and his culturally aware wife Jessie (Wyllie) Binning (1906–2007) provided many opportunities in their home for artists, writers and architects to socialize.

In Europe and the United States, Modernist architecture and "futuristic" urban and regional design were taking hold and Binning wanted to introduce them to British Columbia.

The drawings exude humour and love: a friend cutting a dog's hair or a picnic view from a high perch.

Festival of the Contemporary Arts, a mold-breaking yearly avant-garde celebration spanning the decade of the 1960s in Vancouver, at the peak of which Marshall McLuhan spoke in 1964.

[13] He presented many papers internationally; was on advisory boards; received innumerable grants, awards, fellowships, one-person shows and retrospective exhibitions.

When Jessie died in 2007 at the age of 101, the ownership and management of the house transferred to TLC The Land Conservancy of British Columbia.

After a protracted legal battle, TLC was ordered by the Supreme Court of British Columbia to return the house to the Estate of Jessie Binning.

[18] In 1938–39, he took a year's leave of his teaching duties to study in London, England under Mark Gertler, Bernard Meninsky and, most significantly, Henry Moore.