A Swiss-born architect and writer, Andreas Nothiger came to Vancouver in 1967. He operated Gastown's Classical Joint coffee house from 1970 until 1988. Inspired by German historian Arno Peters' innovative, illustrated chart of world history Synchronoptische Weltgeschicte, he wrote and developed his own World History Chart with encouragement from James Michener, Stephen Lewis and Basil Stuart-Stubbs. With 46 pages of text and a biographical index for 464 influential people from history, his 35.5 centimetre-deep, colour-coded, folding book surveyed 3,000 years on one elongated page. Self-published in 1989, the project was picked up by Penguin Books in 1991 for a paperback version. Nothiger reclaimed the publishing rights and continued to modify and market the work in the new Millennium.

[BCBW 2004] "Oddity"