PHOTO ESSAY

Concrete Poet

The bold lines of architect Arthur Erickson

By Greg Buium

May 2006

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Photo by Ricardo L. Castro, 2005. Courtesy of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Waterfall Building (2002)
Vancouver

Erickson’s early design concepts – spaces calculated to encourage informal encounters; architecture that blurred the line between work and play – were transported many years later to the Waterfall Building, a Vancouver housing complex.

“He’s trying to make an urban experiment there,” Olsberg notes. “You don’t know whether your neighbour is occupying that space to work in or to live in … and I think that’s part of the idea he has: to make this sort of enclosed urban village that gives you a feeling of intimacy and community.”