Thursday. June 27,1991 — THE BULLETfM — 5
Canada's 124th Birthday!
44V By ETHAN MINOVITZ
JL don*t think Fm becoming more famous than I was before/Mnsists architect and UBC community planning professor Michael Seelig, **or that I will be; I just do my work.-
SeeUg undeiiestinmtes hiniself/ The co-author of "Future Growth -—Future Shock,^ a series of sevefn Vancouver 5un articles which have won wide acclaim^ he is becoming increasingly weU-knpwn as a planner who believes that urban settlenient and the hatuiai environment can co-exist.
Wntten in as^ Artibise, director of UBC*s
school of community and regional planning, and published last Npyember, the s^ri^ has received the Media Club of Canada's
E Minovitz
MICHAEL SEELIG at desk in Oakridge home, behind computer terminal connecting with UBC. Picture on wall Is by father Heinz, when he was ajcqmmercial artist
Memorial Award. The Planning Institute of B.C. also gave it first prize in this year's Awards for Excellence in Planning.
All this for seven newspaper pieces? **The articles," Seelig explained during an interview at his C^kridgehome^ **werejw^^ beginnihg.**
The S2-yeaf-old professor, bom in Tel Aviv and raised in Haifa, came to Vancouver in 1971 with an eye for helping ensure that
development addresses regional and even global concerns. The concept wasn't widespread then. It's gained such popularity since, though, that his articles on the topic have been expanded into a book, Fwm Desolation to Hope: The Pacific Fraser Region in 2070, published by UBC in January.
"You can't just plan according to political boundaries," argues the professor. "You really have to look at the entire environmental and ecolbgicaUystem." He postulates that the region "from IDe^^ lation [Sound] to Hope [in the Fraser Canyonr will grow in population to 2.7millibh by the turn of the century, but that its residents c^nstiU retain the Ui^biUty of their communities, ^ ^
Presidentsince 197$ of his own planning and designfirm, Seelig Consultants Ltd., he has teamed up with private and public-sector projects in Canada, the U.S. and Israel.
In his birthplace, where he remains a registered architect, See-lig's planning experience was extensive. From 1964 to 1965; he worked with Al Mansfield of Haifa on building the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Louis Kahn of Philadelphia was his partner on renovations to the destroyed Hurva synagogue, rebuik in the Old City in 1968 and 1969.
Seelig believes his interest in architecture and planning stems from his father Heinz. Initially a commercial artist (producing, among other depictions, drawings of real estate interiors), Heinz Seelig became a specialist in religious art, illustrating a popular Vssisovex Haggadah.
After completing service in the Israeli Air Force, Michael Seelig received honors diploma in architecture from London's Hammersmith College of Art and Building. He earned master's and Ph.D. degrees in city planning from the University of Pennsylvania, where he met his wife Julie.
After Seelig graduated, he planned to go to Technion, but the couple arrived in Vancouver through an "interesting fluke," the architect related. "I was supposed to work with Technion, but they didn't have the budget.
"So they suggested I take a one-year post-doctoraf fellowship somewhere. And UBC happened to have such a fellowship," he said. :
"I wasn't even aware where Vancouver was! But after three or four years, I was offered a permanent position at U BC. We stayed
:on."; ,
Almost since he arrived, Seelig began examining Vancouver's growth. In 1972, he embarked on a study entitled "Time Present, Tiihe Past" — th^ first, he believes, that deah with the need to identify "heritage" areas in the'<:ity. TTie Christian Science Monitor printed an article on the study, he recalled, before the Vancoitver 5!t4n reprinted it.
"Vancouver's Heritage Advisory Committee was formed as a foUpw-up to this, and the heritage activity that started in this city was, to a large extent, a result of this study. But I wouldn't take full 'credit!" :
In 1973, he l)egan a seven-year partnership with Canadian architect Arthpr Erickson and Frederick Gutheim of Washington, D.C. In 1976, in honor of Habitat's theme of himian settlements, the trio held an architectural coinpetition for the design of a community in Manila housing 140,000 squatters. Two thousand applications were received, more than 500 entries submitted.
Competition results were displayed at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Said Seelig: "It was, in fact, the on/)' exhibit during Habitat.".' ' '-
Years later, a chance meeting witha reporter resulted in the recent award-winning series of articles. He suggested to her that regional growth should be addressed. The paper independently approached Seelig and Artibise,chairmanof the school where he teaches, expressing interest in commissioning some think pieces.
Artibise then asked Seelig to collaborate with him. Withtheaid of several research assistants and professional pollsters, they put nine months of work into the articles.
Seelig and Artibise's suggestions for the I^wer Mainland and adjacent areas include the redefinition of regional boundaries to include the Sunshine Coast and Squamish-Whistler. They also call for lessened consumption and an end to selfishness.
The NDP, Seelig said, "is very much in line" with the planners' thinking. But perhaps the party hasn't seen their recommendation that the "Pacific Fraser Region" have fewerelected and appointed politicians than the 551 currently in power.
A hands-on person as well as a theorist, Seelig has been working with ratepayers and homeowners in Shau^nessy and South Granville to flght the replacement of affordable housing by "monster houses." Said the architect "I'm very concerned with how we can save whatever still is here« even though a fairly large pari of the dty has already, if not been destroyed, certainly v^^
On awider scale, he seeks protection of the region's environment through cooperation with the United States. He cites U.S. reports of pollution in B.C., especially the Georgia basin. "International political boundaries become quite irrelevant when it comes to our joint environment," according to Seelig, "just as Boundary Rd. is a meaningless boundary for pollution that is created in Bumaby and moving over to Vancouver."
His world perspective has placed him in great demand as a lecturer around the globe. He has spoken at the Hebrew University of JerusalemV BezalefAcademy and Technion, as well as
SEELIG - Rige 10
m
I
By PETER CAULFIELD
3:
n today's world of sudden and what often appears to be pointless change, the life and work of Vancouver internist Dr. Josephine Mallek stands out as a welcome symbol of continuity and harmony.
The daughter of two doctors who immigrated from Europe to Canada early in the century, Dr. Mallek himself married a doctor. Before she and her husband. Dr. Howard Mallek, retired two years ago, they worked in adjacent offices for 48 years. Their son became a doctor, and now his daughter, still in high school, is thinking seriously of medical school.
Dr. Mallek has been and remains active in Vancouver community affairs. Josephine has just finished a two-year stint as president of the Vancouver Medical Association. She is also a member of the Special Seniors Committee of the City of Vancouver as a representative of the Vancouver Medical Association, and medical co-ordinator at Louis Brier Home and Hospital. Both she and her husband are active members of the Tillicum Housing Group, a Vancouver seniors housing Organi-.zation. . ^■
She has also been an active participajnt in debates on various medical concerns. Recently, she has spoken Out about euthanasia, an issue which has been receiving a lot of press coverage. Dr. Mallek is absolutely clear about where she stands.
A doctor's mandate is to cure where possible and to relieve suffering. If the attempt to-relieve pain and suffering results in premature death in a terminally-ill patient, where this is a side effect of^treatment, iris acceptable. However, if the medication is used with the primarjL^rpose of ending life, it is not acceptable," she says. ^
Dr. Mallek says that the choice for doctors is not between treating or withholding all treatment. "It is rather with u^ing very active treatment but only such treatment as is appropriate for the terminally ill. If thererminally-ill individual is conscious and competent, he is at liberty to decide whether to accept or refuse any treatment.offered. His \yishes must be respected."
She cautions against legalizing euthanasia. "It's a very popular idea now, but the groups demanding it may get more than they are bargaining for. It is imperative that governments and legislators — the people who pay the bills — are kept out of the sick room. Keep the euthanasia decision an individual one."
Finally, she says that the old and the feeble deserve the very • best medical care, since they were once young and healthy;and
and its ill, it deserves primitive or Third World status."
A native of Montreal, Dr. Mallek grew up in a rambling house on Sherbrooke street east, between St. Laurent and St. Denis. The two European-born physicians who were to become her parents had met under circumstances that carf be best described as only-in-Quebec: her mother had been hired to tutor her father in French to prepare him for Provincial examinations. "My father said it was cheaper to marry my mother than to pay her," Dr. Mallek quips.
She says that she and her siister Helen were brought up in an "almost Orthodox" home. "Our family was quite traditional, although it made an effort to accommodate the modern world," she explains. "We kept kosher in our.own way. We were careful to drink milk after the meat course, and out of'dairy' glasses."
Whileshe and her family associated entirely and exclusively with the Jewish community in Montreal, they didn't belong to any of the Jewish organizations. Her family kept the Sabbath and observed all the holidays, but never went to synagogue. "On the High Holy Days, us kids would do a tour of the shuls in the city to visit^ith our friends, and see what everyone else was doing," she remembers.
Although she suffered from what was at the time the double handicap of being both female and Jewish, Dr. Mallek attended McGiU's prestigious medical school, graduating in 1936 as the youngest in her class. While at medical school she met fellow student Howard Mallek, her future husband. Their first meeting sounds even more serendipitous than that
helped to buildthe country. **If a rich society like ours is not prepared
to look after its aged
MALLEK her life and work stand out
E.MInoviU
of her parents.
"I found him ashe was coming out of the men's washroom in his residence on University street," states Dr. Mallek in a matter-of-fact manner.
Howard and Josephine were married in 1938, whereupon they went to Britain for two years of post-graduate work in a London hospital. "We were the first married couple to do post-graduate work in a London county council hospital," Dr. Mallek proujdly states. They returned to Canada in July 1940, settling in Vancouver. "Howard was raised in Victoria, and wanted to stay on the WestCoast. Since the Jewish comniunity in Victoria was tiny at the time, we opted for Vancouver instead," she says.
Both were rejected by the Canadian army—Howard for health reasons, and Josephine because of her gender. So they immediately went into private practice in adjacent offices in the Birks building in downtown Vancouver. "We shared the same set of offices for 48 years, myself as an internist, and my husband as an opthalmologist," attests Dr. Mallek. "And we got along all that time."
The Ma^lleks have two children, a son and a daughter. David is an ophthalmologist in Vancouver, and he and his wife also have a son and a daughter. Noa, the Mallek's 17-year-old granddaughter, hasn't yet decided on a career, but is thinking about becoming a doctor.
Their daughter Patsy lives outside Ottawa, where she is a teacher and theatre diriector. "She's the creative one in the family," says Dr. Mallek. Like her brother and her parents. Patsy has — yup — a boy and a girl. ~
The story doesn't end here. Dr. Mallek's uncle married and had twgjlaughters, and, when he was 60, a*son. The son was
-killed on^the last day of fighting in the 1948 War ofindepend-ence. He left behind a wife and a baby daughter — who grew up to become a doctor. —^ ^
While4heir careers as doctors and parents have kept them busy, the Doctors Mallek have found time to indulge in their interest in travel. "We've been almost all over the world, including Israel seven times," Dr. Mallek points out. "The only place I felt really uncomfortable was' Jordan. Everything there was *nice', but a Jew clearly doesn't belong there,"
She says she and her husband have thoroughly enjoyed their visits to Israel: "I have lots of family in Tel Aviv. My mother's brother — another doctor — was among the first settlers from Europe in the early part of the century. He emigrated from Russia to Palestine in 1905, and built a hospital just outside Jaffa, in what used to be the country. He also founded the Israel Medical Association."