The artist likes to seem totally responsible for his work. Often he begins to explain it, to make it appear as if it were a reasonable process.

The personal selection of Arthur Erickson as the architect for the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC by then-Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was controversial because Trudeau overruled the objections and choices of the embassy's design committee. In 1963 Erickson and Massey submitted the winning design for Simon Fraser University. In 1986 he received the AIA Gold Medal.

He studied Asian languages at the University of British Columbia and later earned a degree in architecture from McGill University.