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Douglas Cardinal's brand of native architecture

Broadcast Date: Sept. 29, 1984

Douglas Cardinal is credited with pioneering an indigenous Canadian style of architecture. Drawing from his Blackfoot Indian heritage, he has always been deeply influenced by nature and his surroundings. His trademark free-form shapes and organic designs are exemplified in his best-known work, the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Que. Despite his success, Cardinal has known hardship. "This country primarily is a very racist country when it comes to aboriginal people in the way they are treated by the rest of the Canadians," Cardinal says in this CBC Radio interview.

Douglas Cardinal's brand of native architecture

• Douglas Joseph Cardinal was born in Calgary on March 7, 1934. He was the eldest of eight children. His father, Joseph Cardinal, was of Blackfoot Indian ancestry.

• "Creativity is making a declaration and a commitment and being absolutely unreasonable in carrying it out." — Douglas Cardinal

• In 1953, Cardinal studied architecture at the University of British Columbia. He was asked to withdraw in his second year, partly because of his radical designs and partly because of his Indian background. Some members of UBC's architectural board, which was predominantly British, told Cardinal that it took several generations to produce an architect, and that the son of a "half-breed trapper" had little chance of succeeding in the field.

• Cardinal eventually earned his architecture degree from the University of Texas in 1963. There he was influenced by American Frank Lloyd Wright and Spaniard Antonio Gaudi.

• In 1983, Cardinal was awarded the prestigious commission of designing the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The museum was completed in 1989 at a cost of $340 million, which was over three times the original budget and led to much controversy.

• In 1988, the outspoken architect was caught in another controversy when he was fired from his job as the principal designer for the new National Museum of the American Indian, to be added to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. Cardinal was fired in an acrimonious dispute over money and creative control.

• Some of Cardinal's buildings in Alberta include St. Mary's Church in Red Deer (1967), Grand Prairie Regional College (1972), St. Albert Civic and Cultural Centre (1984) and the Edmonton Space Sciences Centre (1983).

• In 1990, he was made an officer of the Order of Canada.

Douglas Cardinal's brand of native architecture

Medium: Radio

Program: Our Native Land

Broadcast Date: Sept. 29, 1984

Guest(s): Douglas Cardinal

Host: Brian Maracle

Duration: 5:43

Last updated:
Aug. 25, 2009