Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/207624
profile: Oberto Oberti The Vancouver architect looks for inspiration in the hills " Oberti won't let on how old he is now: 'They will retire me if I tell my age,' he says with a laugh." O berto O berti looks to the hills and sees what others don't. Where some perceive a British Columbia ski industry with vacant chairs, he visualizes room for five more Whistlers. When scientists look at shrinking snowpacks and snowless winters, he sees an opportunity to make skiing more sustainable. "We have not even seen the beginning of ski area [development] in B.C. or North America," he says. "It's going to get much bigger." The Vancouver architect's contrarian theories and vision have garnered him controversy, praise and, finally, after 23 years, approval to build Jumbo Glacier Resort near Invermere, B.C. And Oberti continues to work on another local mega ski-project proposal, while ushering Jumbo into construction 28 W e s t wo r l d p28-29_Profile.indd 28 >> winter 2013 OBERTO OBERTI waited 23 years to win approval for his dream ski-resort project: Jumbo Glacier Resort near Invermere (shown below), now set to begin construction in 2014. and encouraging the ski industry to think differently. "We have to learn from Europe," he says. "Europe is the leader when it comes to skiing. They are way ahead of anywhere else in terms of quality of product and diversity of opportunities. But B.C. has the best potential for growth." He admits he didn't know that when he immigrated to Canada in 1965, with an unfinished engineering degree and a history of ski racing in his native Italy. In Vancouver, he studied architecture at UBC before founding Oberto Oberti Architecture and Urban Design in 1976. He has since worked on projects ranging from the West Vancouver Sea Walk to Canada House at the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics. Skiing has remained his passion, and in 1984, when a client commissioned him to find the ideal place to build a ski resort in North America, Oberti had landed his dream project. He flew to Europe to research the continent's resorts. Location was key, he discovered, but North Americans had been looking at it wrong, he says. "Almost all North American ski areas are within two hours of an urban area," he notes. "They are convenient locations, but not the best skiable areas in terms of weather, so most North American resorts are heavily reliant on snowmaking. In the Alps, it is the opposite. The resorts were born before there was skiing. They were the best places for hiking and sightseeing. They had glaciers and big mountains, so when skiing started, they were coincidentally at the right elevation and location for snow. There is no need for snowmaking." Back in B.C., Oberti pored over maps. Three areas rose to the top: a region east of (top) Dominic Schaefer Photography, Pheidias Project Management Corp. 13-10-25 10:30 AM