Erickson was, at the core, a thoroughly modern thinker, embracing the legacies of functionalism and grand ambition established by the great architects of high modernism such as Le Corbusier. The modernist architects were responding to something of a crisis in artistic thought that took shape largely as a result of the Second World War, when the broad metanarratives of the Enlightenment, based on the ideal of social progress through technological advancement, had collapsed upon themselves with the exposure of the Nazi death camps and totalitarian governments in Eastern Europe. Enlightenment thinkers believed that freedom could be achieved through science alone, through a single representational language. This pervasive faith in rationality bled into a wide range of artistic fields, architecture being one of the most eager adopters of the new faith in the machine. Some factions of artists such as the Italian Futurists became fanatical about their belief in the machine as the pinnacle of human achievement and even expounded the benefits of uniting man with machine, in effect, endorsing what we now call a "cyborg." With the rise of Nazism in Germany, however, and the brutal totalitarianism of Josef Stalin, both of which were perpetuated on a thorough rationalization of even life and death, and the horrors that ensued, embracing rationalism for its own sake took on chilling new overtones that would haunt the project of modernity well into the present. In the wake of this collapse, artists and thinkers alike were left scrambling for a way to make sense of technology and its role in human societies. A belief took root in this schism that technology in itself was perhaps not a tool that humans could control to the ends of liberation and social progress, but perhaps that technology had indeed become so pervasive that the machine must now be considered the backdrop of daily life- the mechanism was no longer the tool with which we etched, painted and superimposed our dreams of liberation onto neutral communities, but had itself become the canvas. Social life and the machine had become deeply entangled and the latter had become a new medium of expression.
From this stream of though sprang a number of artistic tributaries such as Brutalism and Modernism that sought to embrace the machine as the new medium of artistic creation and apply that medium to genuine social progress. In short, the project was to use the factory as a new kind of aesthetic in an effort to create better ways to live, as opposed to simply equating the factory itself with progress. It is here we see the works of Le Corbusier finding their genesis- works that provide an important counterpoint to Erickson's projects later in the century.
Some examples of Le Corbusier's significant works.
Note that in Le Corbusier's work, the geometrical forms are purposefully visible, and that there is little attempt to ground the building in its surroundings. The Villa Savoye (bottom) rises up from the ground in an unnaturally clean shade of white and appears austere, even office-like. These are not mistakes or architectural insensitivities. Geometrical forms and rationalism were instrumental in turning living spaces into highly functional machines that looked to maximize efficiency, just as the conveyor belts and machines of a factory looked to streamline the process of manufacturing. It is this quite staunch strain of modernism that I feel the term "concrete wizard" tends to evoke- austere buildings that appear stoic and unforgiving in light of the postmodern love affair with intimate spaces and public displays of whimsy. But when we pose Erickson's work against le Corbusier's work, we note a number of critical differences that speak volumes about the spirit that underlies each of his monumental projects.
Take, for example, the project that launched Erickson's illustrious career on a global scale- Vancouver's Simon Fraser University. Much lauded in its day, SFU has since attracted the scorn of many students for being quite dour, and even prison-like in its design. I feel that, on the contrary, the SFU campus is a thoughtful and incredibly calculated attempt at creating a unified and flowing space for public gathering and the liberal sharing of knowledge. Constructed almost entirely from concrete masonry, the campus does indeed appear a bit ominous in the Vancouver fog, having been darkened and worn down by the constant moisture of the coastal air. Nonetheless, Erickson managed to create a spectacularly balanced school that, while brand new, and constructed from synthetic materials, seems to emerge from the mountaintop on which it rests and accommodate the spectacular forest that surrounds it on all sides. As opposed to creating a small city-type campus with a number of disconnected buildings and faculties, Erickson created a campus where all buildings were connected either by enclosed hallways or semi-covered breezeways, that worked with the grade of the mountain to vastly reduce sprawl and respect the ground upon which he was building. From the grand, open Convocation Mall, to the massive corridors of the Academic Quadrangle, all faculties are a part of the same building, a move Erickson made to encourage an interdisciplinary spirit and facilitate cooperative scholarship. Granted, many of the additions and expansions made to the campus since its birth have compromised this original spirit and detracted from the original aesthetic, the spirit remains the same, with students moving easily and quickly between departments as diverse as Physics and Music in a matter of moments. The distinctly Grecian and Athenian overtones created by the isolated mountaintop location and central courtyard surrounded on all sides by lecture halls, labs and seminar rooms, draw upon a time when all education was all education, and a single student was encouraged to excel in artistic, scientific and philosophical pursuits.
Simon Fraser University's Burnaby Mountain Campus
SFU demonstrates the true genius of Erickson as something more than just a "concrete wizard." He constantly managed to pursue the grand narratives and ambitions of modernism, constantly creating buildings that seemed somehow socially important and capable of facilitating and nourishing truly progressive social relationships. At the same time, they harnessed the deep functionality of Le Courbusier, making the most of what little space he was given and creating efficient, well-planned and easily navigable spaces. Above all, though, his greatest works achieved both of these ends while existing in a deeply respectful and reciprocal relationship with the world around them and illustrating a reverence for the materials, environments, climates and people that would inhabit and surround them. While Courbusier and the other high modernists are indeed owed a large debt for their massive contributions to the field of architecture, Arthur Erickson managed to achieve and balance what few, if any of these masters of the art, managed to- space, the needs of the people that inhabit and use that space, and the world that sustains them both. This pursuit og grand unities between function, form, society and surrounding is reproduced over and over again in Erickson's works- from his individual buildings to his massive-scale town planning projects.
Erickson was more than concrete, and he certainly wasn't a wizard. His architecture, at its best, was brilliant not by a slight of hand or smoke and mirrors, but by a belief in the idea that buildings shape who we are and the way we see the world, and by treating such an important project with the respect it deserves. No tricks, no gimmicks, just intent, passion and belief in the power of public spaces.
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