Culver City, California based firm, SPF Architects recently presented their design concept for the Cantos National Music Center for Calgary. The project is “seen by many as one of the country’s most ambitious and important urban-design projects.” Located in the center of Calgary, the new music center will not only focus on performance areas but will become more of a cultural space as it will be “part museum and part education.”
More about the Music Center after the break.
For the final presentation, SPF showed a documentary film that took “viewers on a journey, not only through the building, but through the entire creative process and soul of the project.” The proposal aims to revitalize the area and the music scene by having the building’s internal life revealed in the structure. To create the necessary room for the programmatic elements, a bridge floats 33 feet above the street, King Eddy, to connect the two main masses. Poetically, the bridge is connecting the people while it also creates the least amount of interruption for the street and responds to the needs of the program. By having this bridge, the street can remain open and this new space provides views of the city and “honors the King Eddy.”
The proposal creates fluid internal spaces where performance areas, workshops and galleries fuse together to make “an environment where music can be played, enjoyed and celebrated.” The building takes a “pure form so it does not detract from what’s important” such as how the building functions musically and communally.
The awarded firm will be announced this September.
