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Put February 1 in your calendar (7 pm, SFU Harbour Centre) if you care about the state of Vancouver’s architecture.  That evening, some of this city’s prominent voices (including Planning Director Brent Toderian and architectural critic Trevor Boddy) will weigh in on the debate that occupies, for instance, the front page of today’s New York Times ‘Week in Review’:

Let the ‘Starchitects’ Work All the Angles
By Nicolai Ouroussoff
IT’S hard to pinpoint when the “starchitect” became an object of ridicule. The term is a favorite of churlish commentators, who use it to mock architects whose increasingly flamboyant buildings, in their minds, are more about fashion and money than function….
But in general I find these attacks perplexing. For decades, the public complained about the bland, soul-sapping buildings churned out by anonymous corporate offices. Meanwhile, our greatest architectural talents labored in near obscurity, quietly refining their craft in university studios and competitions that rarely led to real commissions. …
Today these architects, many of them in their 60s and 70s, are finally getting to test those visions in everyday life, often on a grand scale. What followed has been one of the most exhilarating periods in recent architectural history. For every superficial expression of a culture obsessed with novelty, you can point to a work of blazing originality.
Full article here.

And while your calendar is open, include January 16 at the Four Seasons Hotel.  Planner/architect Andres Duany will be speaking that evening in an SFU City Program-hosted event.