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Douglas Cardinal

 
Art Encyclopedia: Douglas (Joseph) Cardinal
 

(b Calgary, Alta, 7 March 1934). Canadian architect. He studied at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (1953-4), and at the University of Texas in Austin (1956-63; BArch.). He worked for Bissell & Holman in Red Deer, Alberta (1963-7), and opened his practice there in 1964. In 1967 he opened a second office in Edmonton, where he practised from 1976. He was of North American Indian descent, and from the outset of his career in northern Alberta he endeavoured to weld indigenous philosophy, especially that of the Plains Indians, with contemporary material culture and technology. His earliest completed building, Guloien House, Sylvan Lake, Alberta (1967), was one of a series of commissions for social and educational facilities to serve the native peoples in north-western Canada. Besides expressing his aim of combining native tradition with modern practice, it also indicated his consistent social concern by the involvement of the client in the design process; through that same process he developed a Master Plan for the Alberta Indian Education Centre at Edmonton (from 1970).

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Wikipedia: Douglas Cardinal
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National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. - Cardinal was forced off the project before completion and appears not to be content with the finished design.

Douglas Joseph Cardinal, OC (born March 7, 1934, Calgary, Alberta) is a Canadian architect.

Born of Métis and Blackfoot heritage, Cardinal is famous for flowing architecture marked with smooth lines, influenced by his Aboriginal heritage as well as European Expressionist architecture[1] [2]

In 1953 he attended the University of British Columbia; he later attended the University of Texas at Austin, from which he graduated with a degree in Architecture in 1963.

Professional life

Among the many projects Cardinal has completed in his career are the following:

Cardinal was one of the first North American architects to use computers to assist in the design process. His curvilinear designs reflect the landscape around them, so that people making use of the building can retain a sense of the land that surrounds them.

In 1993, he was hired by The Smithsonian Institution as the Primary Design Architect for the National Museum of the American Indian, or NMAI. The NMAI is situated on the last site of the National Mall in Washington D.C., which directly faces the Capitol Building of the United States of America. After contractual disputes, Cardinal was removed from the project in 1998 before it was completed, but he continued to provide input into the building's design.

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