The Globe and Mail

Arthur Erickson

He is Vancouver's most talked-about architect, Canada's most acclaimed cultural export and the designer-in-residence of city icons both cursed and blessed by the citizenry they were intended to serve. He, of course, is Arthur Erickson. But despite all the books and chatter about him, his works remain largely misunderstood. "One of the ideas we have to rectify is that this is 'Canada's greatest architect,' " says Nicholas Olsberg, the Arizona-based guest curator for the major Arthur Erickson retrospective opening at the Vancouver Art Gallery this weekend. "To hell with that! This is someone who is critically important to how architecture has changed worldwide -- and how it might still change." Throughout his 40-year career, Erickson's main obsession has been how cities work. The designer of Robson Square, the Law Courts, Simon Fraser University and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC is less concerned with creating postcard images than about how locals interact with his structures. "He conceives of projects as actively changing the way we live," Olsberg says.