Part 2 — Charles Marega: The Forgotten Sculptor Who Gave Vancouver Its Lions
Every city has a soul — a symbol that becomes part of its identity.
Paris has the Eiffel Tower.
New York has the Statue of Liberty.
And Vancouver?
Vancouver has the Lions.
Those two magnificent stone guardians at the entrance to the Lions Gate Bridge have stood watch for nearly a century. They are photographed millions of times a year. They appear on postcards, murals, tattoos, T-shirts, and tourism brochures.
But almost nobody knows the name of the artist who created them.
His name was Charles Marega.
And this is the story of how Vancouver almost forgot one of its greatest creators.
🗿 The Man Behind the Lions
Charles Marega was born in Italy in 1871, trained in Europe, and arrived in Vancouver in the early 1900s. At a time when the city was still young, he quietly became one of the most influential artists in Western Canada.
He created:
- The Lions on the Lions Gate Bridge
- The Joe Fortes Memorial Fountain at English Bay
- The massive George Vancouver statue at City Hall
- Figures on the Sun Tower
- War memorials, public sculptures, and architectural details across the region
He shaped Vancouver’s visual identity — yet the city barely remembers him.
🦁 Creating the Lions: A Masterpiece Born from Struggle
In the 1930s, as the Lions Gate Bridge was being built, Marega was commissioned to create two monumental lions inspired by the North Shore mountains — the twin peaks settlers renamed “The Lions.”
The sculptures:
- were carved from Stanstead granite, a notoriously tough stone
- took months of labour to complete
- required precision rivaling European master sculptors
- had to withstand decades of rain, wind, and traffic vibration
Each lion is over 10 tonnes, carved with striking detail — the muscles, the folds of the mane, the noble posture.
They are not just architectural ornaments.
They are guardians.
They are spirit figures.
They are the doorway to the city.
But Marega never lived to see the bridge open.
He died in 1939, shortly before the unveiling — his crowning masterpiece revealed without him there to witness it.
🌑 And Then… Silence
After his death, something heartbreaking happened:
Vancouver forgot him.
For decades:
- no major retrospectives were held
- no commemorations for the city’s most iconic sculptures
- no plaques honouring the artist behind the Lions
- his contributions to the Sun Tower, City Hall, and public monuments were unrecognized
Tourists and locals posed proudly with the Lions — never knowing the name of the man who breathed life into the stone.
This is the kind of erasure that Part 1 of this series spoke about:
the way working artists, craftspeople, and builders disappear from official history while politicians and wealthy patrons get the credit.
🕊️ Why Charles Marega Matters Today
Charles Marega represents something bigger than just one artist.
He represents:
- the immigrant creators who built Western Canada
- the artists who shaped cities but received little pay or recognition
- the loss of cultural memory
- the importance of storytelling and community history
His story also highlights the tension between public art and political prestige.
The Lions Gate Bridge is often associated with the Guinness family — the wealthy financiers.
But the sculptures themselves, the emotional heart of the bridge, came from the hands of a single working artist.
That matters.
🌁 A City Built by Forgotten Hands
In Part 1, we talked about the workers who built the Empire State Building — Irish, Italian, and Mohawk labourers whose names vanished from the plaques.
Part 2 brings that lesson home.
Vancouver was not built by politicians.
It was built by:
- Coast Salish land and labour
- immigrant stonecutters
- Italian sculptors
- workers who poured concrete, broke stone, hammered steel
- artists like Charles Marega whose work defines the city
And today, as the skyline grows and towers replace heritage, these stories are more important than ever.
🔥 Coming Next in the Series
Part 3 — The Mohawk Skywalkers: Indigenous Ironworkers Who Built North America
A powerful look at the men who worked the high steel from New York to Vancouver.
Part 4 — The Immigrant Builders of the Golden Age
The Italian stonemasons, Chinese labourers, South Asian carpenters, Japanese gardeners, and Eastern European metalworkers who shaped Canadian and American cities.
Part 5 — Whose Name Gets Remembered?
A deep dive into historical erasure and why working-class creators vanish from official stories.
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