Consternation in Calgary

Bob Scott

The challenge was to create a 20, 000 square metre big hybrid building, which facilitates a convention centre, retail space, and a train station. The site was the adjacencies of the railway yard in Calgary’s downtown core.

The intervention was considered holistically, one part of the greater metropolis; its purpose, to engender vitality into the downtown core of Calgary. Historically, Calgary has an aversion to the eccentric. This attribute has promoted homogeneous architecture to pacify the masses, a triumph for banality. The remedy proposed was that of shock therapy.

The strategy was to disregard tradition and insert something outrageous, that would engender impetuous emotional reaction, amongst the prevailing safety of conservatism.

The architecture has the pretence of being traditional; it is massive box. However, disconcerting elements disrupt the morphological security. The cube hovers over a massive excavation (the parking garage) and thus, has become isolated from its milieu. Slotted unglazed openings disfigure the translucent skin of industrial grade corrugated fibreglass. From the street, the synthesis allows an unnatural screened view of the internal organs and skeleton. The circulation punctures the skin at random locations throughout the façade.

The potency of this intervention will create consternation; a crucial relief in a stolid cityscape.

Bob Scott is an MArch student at the University of Calgary.