Arthur Erickson designs an airy, elegant masterpiece
North Americans have built handsome cities and grown tired of them, as children grow tired of their presents after Christmas. Few architects are as aware of such urban waste as Canada's Arthur Erickson, 54, and few have done more to restore vitality to the inner city. His latest and most ambitious undertaking is a combination of function and fantasy in the heart of his native Vancouver. Formally opened in September, the downtown complex has already put new fizz in the life of a provincial city.
Erickson's oeuvre in Canada's largest West Coast city is a multilevel, three-block megastructure that blends greenery, glass, pools and waterfalls, ramps, steps and terraces, domes, blossoms and trees.
It unites a large suntan piazza, a luxurious office building for the British Columbia government and a seven-story courthouse covered with a shimmering glass roof that is one of the biggest (53,000 sq. ft.) of its kind in the world.
In patios and mini-parks, the three blocks encompass the most extensive urban planting of trees, shrubs, vines and ground covers of any North American city: more than 50,000 indigenous maples, dogwoods, pines, brooms, junipers, sword ferns, rhododendrons, yews and creeping roses. In some green areas, traffic cannot be seen—or heard over the splashing of waterfalls. To some, the sloping, low-rise structure resembles an Inca temple reflecting the spectacular beauty of the Pacific rim on which it sits.
The greatest public attraction is the piazza named Robson Square, after 19th century British Columbia Premier John Robson. A summer mecca for alfresco lunchers and outdoor shows by dance and theater groups, the square has two indoor theaters, three restaurants, a cosmopolitan food fair, an exhibition hall and an outdoor ice-or roller-skating rink. From the eastern end of the square, zigzagging tiers of steps lead through a sylvan setting to the government office building, which has rooftop pools and waterfalls tumbling over large picture windows. The building's 127,000 sq. ft. of open office space (for only 900 workers) is separated according to function by low dividers and jungles of greenery.