by Scott Daniel | Norman Foster’s Jameson building at 838 Hastings is nearly complete.  That’s right Vancouver, we have a shiny new piece of Starchitecture to call our own! (Safdie and Erickson may be star architects, but according to The Internet, they aren’t Starchitects). So, what do we think?

IS IT BEAUTIFUL AND INNOVATIVE? | I think there’s some beauty here. A nice contrast with the Ceperley Rounsfell (1929) and Chamber of Mines (1921) facades at its base. And a refreshing counterbalance to the green glass, podium-tower Vancouverizers all around. Something different. All that, and – hello! – a fully mechanized underground parkade!

IS IT MENACING? | A little. I can picture William Gibson living here, writing dystopian futures…in his pod…with a crisis garden…nourished by SunLight that is refracted through brown air and PodGlass. The building even has it’s own bio-diesel powered cogeneration plant. Green innovation for survivalists!

BUT, IS IT REALLY STARCHITECTURE? | The Jameson’s marketing materials are convincing: this building expresses a great architect’s unique vision. Foster this, Foster that. It takes a little digging to find out the lead architect is actually Nigel Dancey, who in turn, runs a team of 160 architects. No, I wasn’t under the impression that Norman Foster jetsets around the world whipping together 3 or 4 monumental projects per month. But it would be interesting to know whether he does anything more than sign off on these things.

At the end of his career, Vancouver’s own ziggurat poet, Arthur Erickson, was as much branding tool as concrete waffler. Such is the state of the industry. In an age of so-called ‘apostrophe’ books, video games, and films, where the author/creator is merely a franchise dispensary, this comes as no surprise. While it’s too harsh to compare Norman Foster to Tom Clancy, think of the video game spinoff opportunities. Norman Foster’s Commando Architects II: Special Ops! Perfecting the art of assassination while using built space to conjure a sort of sublime humanism, transgressing artificial barriers that separate inside from outside, public from private.