Community leaders challenge Alberta to rethink plans to demolish Royal Alberta Museum

The former Provincial Museum and Archives of Alberta, more recently known as the Royal Alberta Museum, adjacent to Government House, is located on a beautiful site in Glenora. It opened in 1967, with the Honourable Judy LaMarsh, Secretary of State in the Pearson government, presiding at the opening ceremony with Alberta Premier Ernest C. Manning, and the Honourable Dr Grant MacEwan, Lieutenant Governor of Alberta in attendance.

The Government of Alberta recently announced that they would be tearing down the building that used to house the Provincial Museum, and converting the area to a “green space.”

We must pause for a second however, and consider what this means for the Province. When we see a future, we celebrate all that we and our predecessors have done to create it. We celebrate the remarkable vision of our leaders.

Over the past century, Alberta has had leaders who had the courage to dream big and invest in our future, and now we stand on the shoulders of giants. So what comes next?

Architecturally, the former Provincial Museum building was well built, well designed, and served its purpose for several generations of Albertans to explore and learn.

Now is not the time to destroy it, but rather it is the time to reimagine it for new uses in the future. There are countless examples all over the world, where buildings outlived their original purpose, only to exemplify new ideals in a new era.

Places like the recently reopened Battersea Power Station in London or the Tate Modern, also in London come to mind. Closer to home, we see the former McKay Avenue School serving as the School Board’s Museum and Archives, and the former McDougall Home serving as the heart of the Edmonton Community Foundation’s operations.

Can we imagine a future where the youth of Alberta today can be proud of what has been created and what their future is based on, while also daring to create a vision of the next 100 years with legacy buildings as part of that vision?

Can we envision a future where older high-quality buildings are reimagined to share stories of where we have been and where we are going as a province and as a country? What would we as a community like to see this building be used for ?

Unfortunately, the government of Alberta has embarked on a predetermined path.

Instead of consulting the community as to the future of this important building, ignoring the pleas of members of the community for the protection of this site, as well as pleas by many non-profits for the use of the building, the province chose to consult on only the nature of the green space that would result from its demolition.

This is like asking people what kind of funeral you would prefer, rather than whether you might choose treatment for your illness.

A handful of good ideas have been floated for the use of the former Royal Alberta Museum building, and here are a few of the best:

• The site could be used as a mixed-use development, integrating high-quality housing and community amenities. Nonprofit organisations could use the community spaces for programming and community services.
• A number of urban Indigenous organisations have been looking for a space for a cultural gathering space – and many have identified this building as desirable – perhaps we could craft a well-designed Cultural Gathering space in the heart of old Glenora?
• Alberta has been seeking sites for new data centres, and the deep basements of the former RAM could be readily transformed into data centres, mitigating the need for significant building code upgrades.

A number of these options could be combined to create an economically viable and truly sustainable community facility.

As recently as a couple of months ago we heard this: “I see a huge opportunity for Alberta to be the data centre capital of Canada, if not North America,” Technology Minister and Strathcona-Sherwood Park MLA Nate Glubish said in an interview. Glubish and Premier Danielle Smith are co-leading a newly formed working group on data centres that involves various government departments, including the Ministers of Energy, Advanced Education, Environment and Utilities.

“We believe that data centres are a good fit for Alberta,” Glubish added. “We believe that we can bring a lot of value to the table.”

The Province’s press release states that the “repurposing” of the building would cost about $150 million and that the demolition would cost about $50 million. That doesn’t include the cost of creation of the new green space. If these numbers were true, keeping the building would cost about $75 million – which doesn’t even buy a single data centre in today’s economy.

Wiser investments might include repurposing the building for community use, locating data centres in the basement and adding vitality and creative cultural activity to this important location. There is more than enough green space on this site, and the public domain can be enhanced to improve the experience of this green space, especially along 102 Avenue.

It would take a government that is willing to demonstrate leadership to execute this, a plan that celebrates our past and puts a stake in the future. Hopefully those in the government of Alberta of today are up for the task.

Architect Vivian Manasc is a founding principal of Edmonton-based Reimagine Architects (formerly Manasc Isaac). 

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