Building What Matters:
Werklund Centre Transformation
When I arrived in Calgary in 2020, I wasn’t asked to build a campus.
I was asked to transform an institution.
When I joined Werklund Centre in 2020, the organization was contemplating a major redevelopment. But the real challenge wasn't simply delivering a transformational capital project. It was ensuring that the institution itself evolved alongside it.
Today, that transformation has become the largest cultural infrastructure project in Canadian history, encompassing new public infrastructure, the renewal of Olympic Plaza, the modernization of forty-year-old facilities, and the long-term financial sustainability of the institution through a permanent endowment. Together, these investments represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink how an institution contributes to the life of a growing city.
Redefining, renaming, and reestablishing a 40-year-old institution’s relationship with its city.
❋ RelevanceDelivering Canada’s largest cultural civic infrastructure project.
❋ Scale❋ PartnershipBuilding trust across governments, philanthropy, artists, organizations, and communities.
Helping redefine the role of the arts in the country’s fastest-growing city.
❋ City BuildingKeeping one of the country’s largest cultural centres operational during construction.
❋ ContinuityRaising hundreds of millions of dollars across public and private sources.
❋ FundraisingThe Balancing Act
Every decision required balancing competing priorities:
While embracing…
Reinvention
Civic relevance
Annual operations
Private philanthropy
Daily public access
Financial stewardship
Shared direction
Holding on to…
Legacy
Artistic excellence
Long-term vision
Public investment
Construction
Bold Ambition
Speed
PURPOSEThe Werklund Centre Transformation is rooted in both necessity and opportunity. After four decades of serving Calgary, the existing facility required significant modernization to address aging infrastructure while expanding its capacity to meet the needs of a growing city. But the vision extends far beyond renewal. By integrating new performance venues with the reimagined Olympic Plaza, the project creates Canada's largest performing arts campus—one where the boundaries between indoor and outdoor, audience and community, performance and public life become more open, connected, and accessible. The result is not simply a larger cultural institution, but a more welcoming civic destination designed to serve Calgary for generations to come.
LEGACYThe Werklund Centre Transformation brings together two kinds of legacy that have always shaped great cities: public investment and private generosity. It honours the civic visionaries who established Calgary Centre for the Performing Arts in 1985 and renews one of the city's most cherished public spaces through the transformation of Olympic Plaza. At the same time, it celebrates the extraordinary philanthropy of individuals and families—including the landmark Werklund family $75M gift—whose belief in Calgary's future continues to shape its cultural life. The institution serves as the bridge between these public and private legacies, stewarding both in service of a shared future. In that sense, the transformation is not only preserving what previous generations built, but creating the foundation upon which future generations will build their own legacy.
DESIGNThe Werklund Centre Transformation brings together an exceptional team of architects, landscape architects, urban designers, and Indigenous practitioners whose collective experience spans some of the world's most celebrated cultural and civic projects. The expansion of the Werklund Centre is led by KPMB Architects, internationally recognized for transformative cultural institutions including Massey Hall, the Allied Music Centre, TIFF Bell Lightbox, and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. They are joined by Calgary-based Hindle Architects, whose deep understanding of the city's urban fabric has helped ground the project in its local context, and Tawaw Architecture Collective, founded by Wanda Dalla Costa—the first First Nations woman architect in Canada—whose leadership has helped embed Indigenous perspectives into the project's guiding principles of welcome, relationship, and stewardship.
The transformation extends beyond the building itself. The reimagining of Olympic Plaza is led by a second interdisciplinary team: Toronto-based gh3 Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture, Montréal's CCxA Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, and Belleville Placemaking of New York. Together, they are reshaping one of Calgary's most recognizable public spaces into a flexible, year-round civic destination that honours the plaza's Olympic legacy while creating new opportunities for gathering, celebration, and everyday public life. Inspired by the iconic 1988 Olympic "snowflake," the design reinterprets the plaza as the front yard of Canada's largest performing arts campus, seamlessly connecting indoor and outdoor experiences into a single civic landscape.
DELIVERYDelivering a project of this scale requires more than construction—it requires disciplined coordination across hundreds of organizations, trades, and professionals over many years. The Werklund Centre Transformation is being delivered by the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC), whose expertise in leading complex city-building projects has guided the integration of the performing arts expansion with the renewal of Olympic Plaza. Construction is being led through a partnership between EllisDon and PCL, two of Canada's most experienced builders of major civic and institutional infrastructure.
Behind them is a vast network of consultants, engineers, and specialized trades whose work ranges from structural steel and building systems to theatre technology, acoustics, accessibility, and public realm infrastructure. Together, they are delivering the project in carefully sequenced phases—beginning with the expansion and Olympic Plaza before transitioning to the modernization of the existing facility—allowing Werklund Centre to continue serving the community while preparing for its next generation. The result is a delivery model that reflects the same principles as the project itself: collaboration, precision, and long-term stewardship.
PARTNERSHIPThe Werklund Centre Transformation is founded on an uncommon model of collaboration. Through a tri-party partnership between the City of Calgary, CMLC, and Werklund Centre, each organization brings distinct expertise to a shared civic vision. As the owner of the asset, the City is investing in public infrastructure that will serve Calgarians for generations. CMLC is responsible for delivering one of Canada's most complex civic construction projects. Werklund Centre serves as the Civic Partner, ensuring that every decision is guided not only by what is built today, but by how the campus will be operated, activated, and stewarded for decades to come.
This governance model recognizes that successful public infrastructure depends on more than thoughtful design and expert construction. It requires an institution that understands the community it serves and can steward the campus on behalf of Calgarians long after construction is complete. By aligning long-term operations with project delivery from the outset, the partnership is creating not only a world-class performing arts campus, but a civic asset designed to remain relevant, welcoming, and vibrant for generations.
