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Accepted by the School of Architecture at the University of British Columbia in 1952, he studied there for 3 years. But it was the University of Texas School of Architecture at Austin that provided the intellectually open, yet rigorous, training he needed to develop the complex, undulating architecture for which he is now internationally acclaimed. He graduated with honours in 1963.

Like many of the renowned western Canadian architects developing during the 1950s, Douglas Cardinal sought to interpret the teachings of European modernism by investigating a regional modification of the International Style. He was particularly drawn to the modernity of architects such as Hans Poelzig and Erich Mendelsohn, and his mature work harmonizes an attraction to Italian and Spanish baroque buildings with the expressionist arm of European modern architecture that reached its ascendancy in Germany just after WWI. Cardinal was to synthesize his direct experience of architecture in western Canada (Prairie expressionism in particular) and the neo- baroque of Mexican church architecture, which he would encounter during his travels in the late 1950s, with his formal training in architecture and the history of architecture. This knowledge was conflated with his experience of the terrain of western Canada, in particular the Plains and the Badlands of Alberta, in the development of the curvilinear massing that is a signatory feature of his buildings.

The resulting designs are typified in award-winning projects such as ST MARY'S CHURCH in Red Deer, Alta (1965-68), which was included in Arthur Drexler's highly influential exhibition Transformations in Modern Architecture (1976). During the construction of St Mary's the Cardinal firm began using computer-aided drafting and design systems (CADD). By 1981 he was identified as a world pioneer and leader of CADD, and his firm was selected by the federal government as a demonstration site to test and advance Canadian CADD technology.

Cardinal's principal public buildings include Grande Prairie Regional College in Grande Prairie, Alta (1972-76), the Alberta Government Services Building at Ponoka (1977) and the St Albert Civic and Cultural Centre at St Albert, Alta (1983), as well as numerous schools, all of which continued the curving wall exterior adapted to ever-increasing complex functional programs.

Throughout the 1990s Cardinal undertook a leadership role by providing architectural definition to the aims and aspirations of Amerindian communities. These projects included, among others, the Saskatchewan Federated Indian College, master plan and concept design for expansion, Regina, Sask (1990); the Institute of American Indian Arts, master plan, Sante Fe, New Mexico (1993); Kainai Multi-Purpose Cultural Resource Centre, Blood Indian Reserve, Alberta (1996); and a master plan and design of principal public buildings for the Cree Village of Oujé-Bougoumou in northern Québec, which earned a United Nation's award of excellence for its environmentally sensitive concepts and was celebrated at Expo2000 in Hanover, Germany.

Cardinal's first project outside Alberta and the Northwest Territories brought Prairie expressionism to central Canada through the design for the CANADIAN MUSEUM OF CIVILIZATION (CMC) in Hull, Québec inaugurated in 1989. Acknowledged internationally as a technologically complex building that reframed museum architecture, the CMC is a culturally significant building that was designed to accommodate a shifting perspective on Amerindian history and national culture at the end of the 20th century. In 1993 Cardinal was awarded the commission for the National Museum of the American Indian on the Smithsonian Institution Mall in Washington, DC, which resulted in an outstanding design, built after Cardinal's exclusion from the project and surrounded by controversy.

In 1990 Douglas Cardinal was awarded the Order of Canada, in 1992 the Canada Council Molson Prize for the Arts and in 1995 the National Aboriginal Achievement Award. In 1999 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, the highest architectural honour bestowed upon an individual in Canada. By the year 2000 he had been granted 7 honorary doctorates in recognition of his significant contribution to excellence in architecture. He was awarded the Governor General's Award for Visual and Media Arts in 2001.

Canadian Museum of Civilization, Interior
Panorama by Denis Tremblay, Labtex Inc.

Canadian Museum of Civilization
Canadian Museum of Civilization, designed by Douglas Cardinal (courtesy Douglas Cardinal).

Canadian Museum of Civilization, Exterior
Panorama by Denis Tremblay, Labtex Inc.

Kainai School
(photo by Fernando SaPereria)

St Mary's Church
Designed by Douglas Cardinal in 1968, St Mary's Church reflects the rolling hills of the surrounding prairie landscape (courtesy Douglas J. Cardinal Architect Ltd.).

Author JOAN ACLAND

Suggested Reading
Trevor Boddy, The Architecture of Douglas Cardinal (1989); University of Calgary, The Douglas Cardinal Architectural Drawings: An Inventory of the Collection at the Canadian Architectural Archives, University of Calgary Library (1997).

Links to Other Sites
Oujé-Bougoumou
Take a virtual tour of the new Oujé-Bougoumou community facilities. Features stunning architectural designs by renowned Canadian architect Douglas J. Cardinal.

Douglas J. Cardinal Architect Ltd
View illustrations of architectural projects designed by Douglas J. Cardinal Architect Ltd. Renowned for “living organic” building designs, such as the acclaimed Canadian Museum Of Civilization.

Twelve Modern Houses 1945-1985
Illustrated book excerpts provide architectural details, drawings, and photographs of various modernist homes designed by Canadian architects. From the Collections of the Canadian Architectural Archives. A Google Book website.