The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery: The Act of Transformation

J.A. Love is an associate professor of environmental design at the
University of Calgary.

The design for the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery was chosen by
competition among a limited number of Canadian firms. The completed
scheme, by Patkau Architects, is widely acknowledged as an estimable
example of contemporary Canadian architecture. Brian Carter records all
of the ingredients that went into the competition: the terms of
references of the competition (including site conditions and
requirements), the architectural program and the budget, the schemes
submitted, the jurors involved, and the assessments by those jurors. The
architectural adviser to the competition, Professor Larry Richards,
provides a history of the conception of the competition and its
execution. Because of budget difficulties, the winning scheme was
subsequently revised. The record of the competition follows the project
through these changes to completion. One of the values of an
architectural competition is that architectural thought and judgment by
leading practitioners and regarding the work of leading practitioners
are made explicit. Brian Carter has done architectural education, in its
broadest sense, a service in his careful cataloguing of the development
process for the gallery.