View from the south, showing an overview of the building’s structure, including a bridge that spans both a city street and the restored King Edward Hotel.
Courtesy Allied Works Architecture | Image by MIR View from the south, showing an overview of the building’s structure, including a bridge that spans both a city street and the restored King Edward Hotel.

Portland, Ore.– and New York–based Allied Works Architecture won an international competition to convert an existing hotel, which dates to 1905, and an adjacent half-acre parcel in Calgary’s East Village into a new music education, exhibition, and performance venue. The plan calls for the complete restoration of the King Edward Hotel, which houses one of Calgary’s oldest music clubs, to its former glory. The new spaces are housed in a series of nine concrete-and-steel towers that are clad in terra-cotta and metal panels. The towers curve as they rise from the ground until they join in a canopy that arches over a city street. Juror Sasa Radulovic appreciated the project’s “continuum of exploration between solid and void,” as these spaces merge and form the larger 160,000-square-foot campus. New gallery spaces will display more than 2,000 objects representing Canada’s musical heritage, and a new recording studio and radio station will occupy the towers adjacent to the restored hotel. But those hoping to reserve a room in the thick of the action at the National Music Centre will be disappointed—the hotel is being transformed not into guest rooms, but rather into apartments for artists-in-residence.

National Music Center of Canada, Calgary, Alberta.
Courtesy Allied Works Architecture | Image by MIR National Music Center of Canada, Calgary, Alberta.
A rendering shows a view of the ground-floor lobby.
Courtesy Allied Works Architecture and MARCH A rendering shows a view of the ground-floor lobby.
Allied Works carried out a series of form and structure studies before finalizing the nine-tower plan.
Courtesy Allied Works Architecture Allied Works carried out a series of form and structure studies before finalizing the nine-tower plan.
National Music Center of Canada, Calgary, Alberta.
Courtesy Allied Works Architecture | Image by MIR National Music Center of Canada, Calgary, Alberta.
National Music Center of Canada, Calgary, Alberta.
Courtesy Allied Works Architecture | Image by MIR National Music Center of Canada, Calgary, Alberta.
Site plan.
Courtesy Allied Works Architecture Site plan.

Section
Courtesy Allied Works Architecture Section

Project Credits

Project National Music Centre of Canada, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Client National Music Centre of Canada
Architect Allied Works Architecture, Portland—Brad Cloepfil, AIA (lead designer); Kyle Lommen (principal-in-charge); Chelsea Grassinger (project manger); Dan Koch, Daniel Richmond, AIA (project architects); Brent Linden, Kyle Caldwell , Björn Nelson, Thea von Geldern, Emily Kappes, Philip Balsiger (team)
Local Architect Kasian
Structural Engineer KPFF, Read Jones Christoffersen
Mechanical Engineering Arup, Stantec
Electrical Engineering Arup, SMP
Facade Consultant Arup
Theater Fisher Dachs Associates
Acoustics/Audiovisual Jaffe Holden
Lighting/Daylighting Arup
LEED Consultant Enermodal Engineering
Civil Engineering/Transportation D.A. Watt Consulting
Size 160,000 square feet
Projected Cost $150 million (Canadian)

See all of the other Progressive Architecture winners here.