Not every project has been so easy to walk away from, though, nor has the “right thing to do” always been so unambiguous. The first major project of his career, Vancouver’s Wall Centre tower, was also the most controversial. After construction commenced, the glazing turned out to be much darker than what the City of Vancouver believed it had agreed to as part of a complex negotiation for additional building height. Busby defended his role, and that of his client, but many of his colleagues believed he had deferred too much. To those familiar with the project, it was clear that in his client, Busby had encountered a personality even more forceful than his own–to his potential destruction.
The ensuing scandal temporarily threatened everything he had worked for, and darkened a moment that should have rightfully been nothing but glorious, his debut on the national stage as a major player. During this time, he projected the aura of a man defeated, or nearly so. As part of my interview for a National Post story on this subject, I relayed some of his peers’ armchair admonitions that he should have relinquished the Wall Centre project rather than condone any perceived sleight of hand (or sleight of eye). He was not defensive but wearily resigned: What purpose would it serve for him to walk away from the project, he replied, when there is so much left to do that only his firm could accomplish? It was a saga right out of Lord Weary’s Castle, with Busby grappling against the light or against the dark, depending on your perspective.
The resulting compromise of dark glass on the bottom third of the tower and light glass on the top two-thirds seemed like a Pyrrhic victory to some, a Solomonic decision to others. For Busby, it was Nietzschean: the Wall fiasco could have killed him professionally, but he survived it, and it made him stronger.
As with many great sagas, this one ended in great achievement with nobody much caring in the end who might have been the bad guy. The Wall Centre was a turning point not only in Busby’s own career but also in Vancouver’s urban identify. More than any other building of its time, it raised the shamefully low bar of architectural quality in fin-de-siècle Vancouver.
In a final bit of irony, the current city council recently acquiesced to the developer’s renewed insistence on dark glass, citing environmental reasons.[...]
