Here's what's happening with the Glenbow Museum renovation

Just over a year after a major renovation started, construction crews are finishing up the demolition of the interior of the iconicGlenbow Museum in Calgary.

The downtown museum, closed in 2021 to accommodate major renovations, is scheduled to reopen in 2024.

While the Glenbow is under construction, there is a pop-up gallery at the Edison Building at Ninth Avenue and First Street.

Speaking to the Calgary Eyeopener, Glenbow president and CEO Nicholas Bell said the community has really "come together," raising nearly $160 million so far.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Question: There's so much going on how are you feeling about it, now that everything is starting to happen?

Bell: We're so excited right now. We keep hearing across Calgary, across Alberta, even across Canada, how important it is to renew our cultural infrastructure to ensure that we have really strong and sustainable civic spaces for us to come together as a place and as a community to talk to each other, to learn about our past, to understand a little bit better where we're going.

And the community is showing up. To date, we've raised almost $160 million towards this project, and we're just barrelling towards our goal of $175 million to renew Glenbow for future generations of Calgarians.

Q: You've had a lot of help in getting to that goal. Tell us about some of the people who've come forward.

Bell: Well, of course, every government has come to the table to help make this renovation possible. But the people I'd really like to acknowledge today are the Shaw family. They came to the table this spring and announced that they would be giving a major donation of $35 million to Glenbow, all going towards their endowment.

One of the things that accomplishes is it makes Glenbow the first major museum in Canada that will be free for everyone, forever. That means as soon as our doors are open, you can come into this museum as many times as you want to participate in our program to understand our culture.

I find it thrilling because it means that Calgary is going to be the epicentreof where we changed the conversation in Canada about what access to arts and culture means.

Currently, in most Canadian communities, access to arts and culture is a privilege. You have to have financial means to access it. We're trying to change that narrative.

Q: How is construction progressing?

Bell: We're currently in the final stages of demolishing the interior of the museum. So what we're seeing right now is the hard working team of EllisDon pulling out all of the temporary walls that were put up in the museum decades ago, stripping out the original finishes, and really just bringing this back to a base building condition.

Q: I did notice on social media a picture of one of the concrete panels, the first of many that are being removed. What's going on with those?

Bell: The original 1975 exterior of the Glenbow is 1,556 precast concrete panels. They sort of cover the interior concrete box of the building. And we've recognized for several years now that they are well past their usable life, that they are at risk of failure and they are no longer keeping the building safe and secure. And so we knew that we had to remove them, and that's also an opportunity to make this a much more attractive place that's welcoming, that makes people want to come inside it.

Just this Monday, we took off the very first panel, and we'll be removing those panels from now until about May. And so over the course of this winter and spring, you'll see all of that original exterior of Glenbow removed and you'll begin to see in 2023 the brand new facade coming to life.

Q: What goes through your mind every time you step through that door?

Bell: Every time I walk into this building, it's a reminder that this is a place of possibility. This is only possible because the community and every level of government has come to the table to say that Calgary and Alberta deserve a renewed Glenbow for future generations.

I look at these hard-working people in here right now, tearing down walls, stripping the ceiling, pulling things apart. They're doing it because they know what the potential is of building this museum, rebuilding this museum for the future.