Arthur Erickson's unbuilt "Spaceship" federal government office complex in downtown Vancouver

Jul 6 2022, 4:33 pm

More than a decade after Arthur Ericksonā€™s passing, his namesake foundation and family are looking to build on his storied legacy by bringing to light some of his never-built designs.

This week, the public is invited to learn more about Ericksonā€™s never-built designs by attendingĀ Unbuilt Erickson, a free video presentation highlighting his unbuilt designs in his hometown and around the world. This multi-media show, organized by the Erickson Family Collection, runs from 8 am to 4 pm in the Great Hall of the Law Courts at 800 Smithe Street from July 4 to 7, 2022.

One of Ericksonā€™s most significant unbuilt designs was his concept for a major Government of Canada office complex in downtown Vancouver that was far from being a conventional tower design.

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Eva Matsuzaki, a retired architect, recalls the federal governmentā€™s 1977 decision to hire Erickson to design a 500,000 sq ft office building occupying theĀ entire city block where Library Square, the 1995-built central branch of the Vancouver Public Library, is now located.

She worked for Erickson between 1974 and 1984, and was a project architect for the firmā€™s work on designing both the Government of Canada complex and the BC provincial governmentā€™s Law Courts and Robson Square complex.

The selected Government of Canada complex location, she says, was strategically near Queen Elizabeth Theatre, the Canada Post complex, and the CBC Regional Broadcast Centre ā€” which had been completed just two years earlier ā€” to further establish a strong precinct of cultural and federal institutions.

 

The federal government assumed the design requirement of 500,000 sq ft of office space would be a typical tall box tower, but Erickson had a completely different idea in mind.

Just like the BC Law Courts, he placed the Government of Canada office tower on its side, and there would be a massive public space component.

The concept was to build four big legs, with each pair of legs supporting one of the two oval-shaped ā€œspaceshipā€ office volumes. She says the firm internally referred these as ā€œspaceships passing in the night.ā€

 

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