Arthur Erickson

Arthur Erickson, born in 1924, Canadian architect, who acquired an international reputation as an imaginative exponent of modernist design (see Modern Architecture). In the early 1960s he began integrating advanced building technologies, especially glass and concrete, with inventive compositions that both complemented a building’s surroundings and satisfied functional requirements.

Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Arthur Charles Erickson was educated at the University of British Columbia from 1942 to 1945 before serving briefly in the Canadian army. The work of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright inspired Erickson to study architecture at McGill University in Montréal, Québec, from 1946 to 1950; there he acquired a respect for European modernism and its interpretation by American architect Richard Joseph Neutra. Upon graduation Erickson studied in Greece, Italy, and the Middle East before returning to Vancouver in 1953. He worked with local architectural firms briefly before forming a partnership with Geoffrey Massey in Vancouver in 1963. Erickson opened his own firm in 1972.

While teaching at the universities of British Columbia and Oregon from 1955 to 1964, Erickson completed houses that established him as one of the leading exponents of the West Coast style. In this idiom, architects moved away from the repetitive, mainstream modernist style to designs and materials that matched the surroundings of each particular building. In the Filberg House (1958) in Comox, British Columbia, Erickson integrated a range of contemporary architectural concepts in a structure that responded to the house’s beachside setting. Erickson was fascinated with post-and-beam structure, which he observed in Asia and in indigenous people’s buildings on Canada’s Northwest coast. He incorporated this structure into many of his works. Erickson completed a series of critically acclaimed domestic commissions, including the house and studio for painter Gordon Smith in West Vancouver (1964); the Helmut Eppich House, West Vancouver (1971-1974); and the Hagen House in Bellingham, Washington (1986-1987).

Erickson's equally successful career as an institutional architect began in 1963, when he and Massey won the competition for Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. Erickson and Massey referenced and reconfigured architectural tradition to create an innovative arrangement of academic facilities along a central corridor. Erickson also devised distinctive commercial and cultural buildings that retained the utility of modernist design. These characteristics were exemplified by the MacMillan Bloedel office tower in Vancouver (1967-1969); the University of Lethbridge, Alberta (1967-1969); an addition to the Bank of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario (1971-1973); the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology (1971-1976); and the courthouse and provincial offices in Vancouver (1973-1979). Erickson converted the old courthouse designed by F. M. Rattenbury (1906-1911) into the Vancouver Art Gallery (1979-1983).

By 1980 Erickson had opened offices elsewhere in North America as well as bureaus (temporary offices) in Britain and the Middle East. He designed projects in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia that adapted historical Arabic elements to contemporary ones. With the exception of the Etisalat headquarters in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (1985-1986), few of the projects have been completed. Other international commissions included Napp Laboratories in Cambridge, England (1979-1983), and the neoclassical Canadian Chancery (embassy) in Washington, D.C. (1983-1989), which shows Erickson’s appreciation of ancient Greek style.

In 1992 Erickson closed his international network of offices and opened a smaller office in Vancouver. His major professional awards include gold medals from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (1984), the French Académie d'Architecture (1986), and the American Institute of Architects (1986).