Calgary's National Music Centre begins to take shape in revitalized East Village
By Michael Platt ,Calgary Sun
Study the inside of a fine old piano or guitar, and you’ll discover an instrument painstakingly put together, each unique piece requiring the coaxing of a true craftsmen to get just the right fit.
Expand that meticulous labour to around 160,000 sq.-ft., and you get a pretty good idea what’s happening over on 9 Ave. and 4 St. S.E., where a building such that Calgary has never seen is starting to dominate the East Village skyline.
When it opens in 2016, this will be the home of the National Music Centre, but as an architectural achievement for this city, it represents far more than that.
“You couldn’t have built this ten years ago,” said Gary Duke, project manager for the $168-million landmark-in-the-making.
“You couldn’t have designed this without the capability of 3-D modelling programs we have today.”
Standing five-storeys tall and bridging two East Village blocks, the interior of the National Music Centre at times evokes the sandy cliffs at Petra, where every turn offers a keyhole glimpse of something new.
Or it will. Right now, the National Music Centre looks more like a giant Meccano set, half complete and with a parking lot full of numbered parts waiting to be assembled.
Hidden under his hard hat and safety glasses, it’s hard to tell if Duke is actually giddy about what he calls his once-in-a-lifetime project, but this is clearly a man very excited to be getting up for work each morning.
All around him, it’s a cathedral of construction: steel girders blending into sweeping concrete slabs, and not a simple corner or easily fabricated surface in sight.
This is a job that has taken the tradesmen of Calgary to their limit — and every wall, slab of tile and internal pipe has to be measured and re-measured to ensure it fits perfectly, without clashing with the centre’s amorphous blueprint.
It pushes every construction boundary, and when it’s done, the National Music Centre, designed by Brad Cloepfil of Portland’s Allied Works, will have lifted Calgary to a new standard of architecture.
Like New York’s Guggenheim or Sydney’s Opera House, the National Music Centre is a building that will be just as admired as the art it showcases, and with more than 2,000 musical artifacts and ongoing live performances, that’s really saying something.
“Why not Calgary? It’s our turn,” said Duke, listing other Canadian cities with iconic buildings for national culture, including Ottawa and Toronto.
The state-of-the-art facility, where humidity and temperature control are paramount, will feature both exhibition and performance spaces, as well as the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.
Cloepfil has described his design as a series of intertwining towers, and the building spans 4 St. S.E. to include the historic King Edward Hotel, which will be rebuilt with original brick and interior fixtures, and once again be a live music club serving local blues fans.
The centre’s distinctive roof will support giant bowls containing vast skylights, and Plus-65 crossing linking the two sides of the centre will serve as a gateway to the revitalized East Village, where buildings like this and the new Central Library promise to redefine Calgary in future postcards.
Across from the King Eddy, the galleries of the main building all focus on a 300-seat performance venue but the entire building is designed for live music to echo through every alcove and staircase.
“Around every corner there will be a different sound, pulling you into that space,” said Mary Kapusta, public relations manager for the National Music Centre.
michael.platt@sunmedia.ca
Precious Sound: Some treasures of the National Music Centre
1: Rolling Stones Mobile: An entire recording studio console contained in the back of British lorry, this is the truck where the Stones recorded Exile on Main Street, before loaning it to other acts like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, The Who and Bob Marley.
The NMC plans to install the restored mobile behind the King Eddy, allowing modern bands to record live, via the same analog equipment responsible for some of the greatest records ever made.
2: TONTO: Otherwise known as The Original New Timbral Orchestra, TONTO is a giant analog synthesizer, and one of the first “capable of producing many tone colours with different voices simultaneously.” Considered the most cutting edge instrument of its time, TONTO was used by Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, Randy Newman and Bobby Womack, among others.
3: Elton John’s piano: Sure, Elton has owned a few by now, but this is the early piano on which he and Bernie Taupin composed hundreds of songs, including John’s first four albums. Otherwise a basic white instrument, this is one of those artifacts made priceless by famous fingers.
4: Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame collection: More than 1,300 items connected to Canadian country stars, including Hank Snow’s glittering stage suits and Sylvia Tyson’s autoharp.
5: Studio One: “NMC’s goal is to create a natural, comfortable environment in which artists will enjoy creating new music. It will feature analog equipment from NMC’s collection from the 1960s to the 1980s, and modern tools, offering the best of both worlds,” reads the NMC’s own description of the future recording studio. In short, a place for musicians to play, making Calgary a destination for creative talent.
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