Contemporary Calgary
WINNER OF A 2025 CANADIAN ARCHITECT AWARD OF MERIT
Transforming Canada’s significant brutalist icons to serve society with openness and generosity is one of the many architectural challenges
of our time. This art gallery project for Contemporary Calgary weaves a transparent meander of foyers, landings and art spaces through and around the existing concrete structure. While honouring the original gallery’s sculptural gravitas, this project holds the promise of brutalism as artful civic landscape. – Alison Brooks, juror
LOCATION Calgary, Alberta
In 2019, the art institution Contemporary Calgary moved into the former Centennial Planetarium, a brutalist landmark designed by McMillan Long & Associates. Now, they’re readying for a full revamp that will transform the former planetarium into the city’s premier modern and contemporary art destination. The adaptive reuse will restore the building’s original design vision, which has been obscured by numerous alterations since its 1960s construction, while improving operational performance and accessibility.
The planetarium’s grand—and stridently inaccessible—original multi-level entry featured an open, below-grade parking pit, with a tiered set of stair-connected plazas leading up and over the cars to the main entrance. The Contemporary Calgary project infills the parking-area depressions to create a single-level, barrier-free entry, aligned with the 11th Street sidewalk. 50 percent of the existing surface parking will be replaced with new public landscapes that form a pedestrian arc, linking the C-Train entrance at the southeast to the Bow River Trail at the northwest, and reconnecting the site with the Bow River.
Major spaces within the planetarium are reinterpreted as distinctive platforms for exhibiting art. A pair of respectful architectural additions, located east and west of the original structure, establish welcoming, transparent new entries and expand gallery program offerings with a range of exhibition, event, and educational spaces.
The strategic placement, scale and expression of the new additions along the site’s southern edge showcase the original structure’s opaque sculptural forms when viewed from 6th Avenue and the Bow River Trail.
The original building organized program elements around a central atrium. At the atrium’s core, a new reception node is visible from all entries, marking a clear beginning to the gallery experience. The additions follow suit with clearly expressed connections to the atrium on all levels. Contemporary Calgary’s varied exhibition spaces include the refurbished planetarium dome (redesigned as flexible space for immersive art and performance), halls where art will be displayed in the context of the expressive brutalist architecture, and new, more conventional “white cube” galleries.
This project is targeting Zero Carbon Building Design Standards (V3). The existing structure will undergo significant envelope enhancements to reduce heat loss and improve thermal efficiency. Geothermal piles will reduce the existing building’s reliance on natural gas by 80 percent, and new photovoltaic panels will offset electricity use and reduce overall carbon consumption by as much as 38 percent.
CLIENT Contemporary Calgary | ARCHITECT TEAM GGA-Architecture—Chito Pabustan, Jonny Hehr, Blake Costley, Cam Danylchuk, Todd van der Burgh, Chris Hawkins. KPMB—Bruce Kuwabara, Matthew Wilson, Chris Couse, Nick Choi, Jonathan Santaguida, Lily Huang, Gloria Zhou, Glenn MacMullin, Karen Hsieh | STRUCTURAL Entuitive | MECHANICAL Remedy Engineering | ELECTRICAL/SECURITY/IT SMP Engineering | CIVIL Watt Consulting Group | LANDSCAPE PFS Studio | LIGHTING Tillotson Design Associates | CLIMATE Josh Monk VanWyck and Transsolar | BARRIER FREE Level Playing Field | FIRE & LIFE SAFETY Jensen Hughes | AREA 8,640 m2 | BUDGET Withheld | STATUS Design Development | ANTICIPATED COMPLETION Fall 2029
THERMAL ENERGY DEMAND INTENSITY (TEDI) 91 kWh/m2/year | TOTAL ENERGY USE INTENSITY (TEUI) 137 kWh/m2/year
As featured in the Canadian Architect December 2025 Awards of Excellence issue.
Read our jury’s full comments here.
You can see all of the 2025 Canadian Architect Awards of Excellence winners here.
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