CHRONICLE

From AEF's Board to all members and friends on April 14, 2020: "Like your own lives our operations have been impacted by the pandemic, but we wish to assure you that the AEF's governance is intact. The Board is continuing to meet, plan, and manage. We wanted to take this opportunity to report on the subjects which are currently occupying us, as we collectively wait for the "all-clear" ...
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Over the past decades, the Erickson Garden pond has gradually become shallower as silt and organic material accumulated. One adverse effect of the shallower water was a relative increase in temperature, making it less hospitable as a frog habitat. A full restoration of the pond will come eventually, but in the meantime, remediation was called for. Neill Cumberbirch, member of AEF's House & Garden Committee, reports: "It took five days of digging and wheelbarrowing of material from the pond to the bins located outside the gate on the boulevard. There was 3 to 4 inches of fine silt on top of 8 inches of matted root material, leaves and astonishingly well preserved pine needles and below that the original membrane. We removed material down to the membrane being careful not to damage it. The total water depth is now at its original 18”. Before we started it was 6” ... We left approximately 20% of the original root mass in the pond for regeneration of the waterlilies and irises."

The photos show conditions before, during, and immediately after this remediation, which took place in Spring 2020.

The chair of the Arthur Erickson Foundation council, Phyllis Lambert, has written to Simon Fraser University president Andrew Petter and campus planning and development director Ian Abercrombie, demanding the school halt demolition and assess Madge Hogarth House for heritage value. An Erickson/Massey work, the Women's Residence (as it was then known) was one of the great original campus buildings of 1965.
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At the AEF's 26th Annual General Meeting on June 27, 2019, held at the Law Courts Inn at Vancouver's Robson Square, Trevor Boddy and Barry Johns were elected to the Board for two- and one-year terms respectively, and five others (Phil Boname, Don Luxton, David Covo, Larry Beasley, and Clinton Cuddington) were re-elected for terms expiring in 2022. All seven positions were filled by acclamation. A further eight Board members continue in office, with terms expiring in 2020 and 2021. 

Erickson's architecture has often been referred to as Brutalist — an architectural style that emerged in the mid-20th century and gained popularity in the late 1950s and 1960s. But, in an interview with Stephen Quinn aired on CBC Radio on the occasion of Erickson's 95th birthday, AEF Board member Don Luxton disagreed with that assessment: "Ever been to Simon Fraser during a snowfall? Ever been at [the Museum of Anthropology] at sunset? They are beautiful and extraordinary and very profound buildings and I think the issue of calling Arthur a Brutalist is, to me, is kind of laughable ...". 

Listen to the full interview here.

At its May 29, 2019 meeting, AEF's Board resolved to invite architect Barry Johns to fill a vacant Board position for the remainder of the 2018/19 term. Barry has accepted the appointment, adding that he is"extremely proud and honoured to be part of this organization". He will join six other Board members seeking new terms at the June 27 AGM. A further eight Board members will continue in office, with terms expiring in 2020 and 2021.

Since its founding in 1981, Barry Johns Architecture has sustained a Canadian and international reputation as an innovative design practice – with 100 design awards from around the world, including an Olympic Gold Medal for the Arts and the Governor General's Medal for Architecture. Barry Johns has also received multiple honours from the profession including Honorary Fellowship with the American Institute of Architects, The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and the Order of Athabasca University. He is the first international recipient (2018) of the Leslie M. Boney Medal from the AIA. Deeply influenced by a six-year tenure with Arthur Erickson Architects in the 1970s, the firm is passionate about the role of architecture as a means to leading positive change in our communities. The practice includes architecture, urban design, teaching, public lectures, architectural juries and public service on volunteer fund raising and professional Boards across Canada. The firm’s design experience and reputation for sustainable buildings has enabled it to remain small and participate in collaboration with other larger Canadian practices including (the former) Smith Carter, Stantec, Gibbs Gage Architects, Group2 Architecture Engineering and Perkins + Will. The firm believes in the need to ‘tread lightly upon the earth’ by working in harmony with nature and in an architecture that champions inclusive humanism. A summary of the firm’s history and body of work is included in a new eBook available from the firm’s website, bjalstudio.ca.

Reviewer Alex Bozikovic, writing in The March 15, 2019 edition of The Globe & Mail about Greg Bellerby's new book, "Eppich House II: The Story of an Arthur Erickson Masterwork": "It aligns Erickson with this moment in architecture ... He is ripe for discovery by a new generation ...".
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On March 2, 2019 CBC News reported: "Even for an architect whose wide range includes the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, the MacMillan Bloedel building in downtown Vancouver, and Simon Fraser University, Eppich House II — which is now up for sale — stands out for several reasons ..."
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Following the AEF's 25th Annual General Meeting on June 22, 2018, Trevor Boddy was appointed by directors' resolution to fill one of two Board vacancies. He joins four Board members re-elected at the AGM by acclamation: Phyllis Lambert, Neill Cumberbirch, William McLean, and Christopher Erickson. A further nine Board members continue in office, with terms expiring in 2019 and 2020. 

Mr. Boddy is a critic, curator, historian of architecture/urbanism, teacher and consulting urban designer. He curated the 2008 exhibition Vancouverism and related Trafalgar Square site-specific construction, named a marquee event for the 2008 London Festival of Architecture, and re-mounted in 2009 at Place d’Invalides, Paris. An expanded version was installed at Woodward’s for the 2010 Olympics. His career retrospective exhibition entitled Telling Details: The Architecture of Clifford Wiens toured nationally to five galleries nationally. For the City of Surrey he was co-organizer of TownShift: Suburb Into City, the largest ideas design competition ever mounted by a Canadian municipality, and conceived their new civic design awards.

Trevor has written on architecture and cities for the Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, Seattle Times, Architectural Review, Architectural Record, Bauwelt, A/V and l’Architecture d’aujourdhui, and has won the Western Magazine and Alberta Book of the Year prizes. He holds a Master’s degree in architecture from the University of Calgary, has taught design studio, history, and urbanism on four continents, and lectures globally on contemporary design and city-building. RAIC awarded Trevor its 2010 Advocacy Award, and he is an honorary member of AIA and the Bulgarian Union of Architects.

AEF Director Michael Prokopow has published his new book: Smith House II. This monograph on the house of Gordon and Marion Smith, the second house designed by Arthur Erickson for the artists, is the seventh book in the UBC SALA West Coast Modern House series. The series was established to recognize and document significant, endangered modern residences in the region.