Arts and Literature in Canada:Views from Abroad, Les arts et la ...

IJCS/RIÉCthe Killam-Massey House (West Vancouver, B. C., 1955). Both are variationsof the modern “glass box” but each is uniquely placebound—the former to itsdensely wooded site, the latter to its location on a rock outcrop overlookingHowe Sound, indicating that the architect did not subscribe to the blatantrejection of regional and cultural specificity often presumed synonymous withthe International Style. 6 Erickson turned to a very different syntax ofmodernism, that of Frank Lloyd Wright, and to Japanese architecture; bothvest the land with great power (see Erickson, 1988, pp. 18-21, 41-44). LikeWright, he asserted that “site has to be understood before it can be enhancedwith architecture” (Erickson, 1988, p. 19). A broad definition of context,comprised by the tangible factors of topography, orientation, climate andsurrounding structures, and the more elusive qualities of character and light,became touchstones for Erickson in diametrical opposition to modernism'sconstruct of the building as a privileged, autonomous objet d'art.By the mid-1960s, the period when he was enjoying great success followingthe completion of Simon Fraser University, Erickson was not alone among thevoices that challenged an acontextual doctrine of modernism. There is greatresonance between Erickson's concern for cultural practice and the theories ofChristian Norberg-Schulz whose 1965 Intentions in Architecture counteredmodernism's rejection of tradition. “Architecture itself is a cultural object,”Norberg-Schulz (1965, pp. 122-127) stated, “only through cultural symbolismcan architecture show that the everyday has a meaning beyond the immediatesituation and a share in the cultural and historical continuum.” RobertVenturi's precedent-setting Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture,published the following year, directly challenged the Miesian doctrine “less ismore,” with new ways of knowing a wide spectrum of architectural traditions.True to the exhortations of Venturi's “Gentle Manifesto,” Erickson was rarely“...intimidated by the puritanically moral language of orthodox modernarchitecture” (Venturi, 1966, p. 22). His Anthropology Museum speaks toVenturi's (1966, p. 22) demands for “elements that are hybrid rather than pure,accommodating rather than excluding” (Figure 3); so too do his Law Courts(Provincial Government Offices and Law Courts Complex, Robson Square,Vancouver, B. C., 1973; Figure 4) have the “messy vitality...richness ofmeanings...and implicit function as well as explicit function,” that Venturi(1966, p. 23) sought. Perhaps most important, in the rich and purposefulcollisions of the ancient and the modern in the Anthropology Museum and itstotems (Figure 5), or the art moderne stone and the late-modern skin of theBank of Canada (Ottawa, Ont., 1969; Figure 6), Erickson offers what Venturi(1966, p. 23) called “a valid architecture that evokes many levels of meaningand combinations of focus...its space and its elements become readable andworkable in several ways at once.”Erickson's position in this progressive breakdown of the Modern Movement'santi-historicist underpinnings begins in theory and praxis that predates byalmost a decade such hallmarks of postmodern architecture as the publicationof Learning From Las Vegas, the 1980 Venice Biennale, and the erection of30