Arthur Erickson

Arthur Erickson was a Vancouver architect who became one of the most influential in Canada, and the first Canadian to win the American Institute of Architects' Gold Medal. When he was honored, the architect Philip Johnson said he was by far the greatest architect in Canada, and might be the greatest on the continent. His buildings in concrete and glass tie themselves to the landscape and the light of the Pacific coast.

Both his great Vancouver works are on our walk. Downtown, he turned the old provincial courthouse into the Vancouver Art Gallery as part of his three block Robson Square, finished in 1983. At the university, the Museum of Anthropology opened in his building in 1976, inspired by the post and beam houses of the Northwest Coast First Nations. Its glass Great Hall frames sea, sky and mountains behind the carved poles; give the museum half a day on its own.