Maya Lin Studio has been attached to a new rooftop garden terrace project at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta. 

The 13,000-square-foot design will complement the new $120 million renovation and expansion scheme from DIALOG that was announced in September of 2021. It will include an all-season pavilion structure, event spaces, and sculpture gardens surrounding a central oculus skylight that doubles as a lightwell for the new JR Shaw Centre for Art & Culture. Lin says the space will “afford a welcoming place that will invite visitors to connect to art, landscape, and the city of Calgary.” The project will be her first-ever work in Canada.

“This idea that we are recycling a building in the center of downtown Calgary and making something new out of it while utilizing as much of the old building was a huge draw for me. If we can use an existing building in a better way, it is a lot more energy-efficient, it is a lot more material-efficient, and it sends a very different message about resource consumption and directly counters attitudes about a throwaway culture,” Lin described her motivation in pursuing the design.

The museum will now reopen in mid-2026 and is being undertaken in order to make the 56-year-old institution more accessible to the public. It is one of the most significant adaptive reuse projects in the country to date, calling on its existing Brutalist structure from 1976 to be completely “re-skinned” in ultra-lightweight cladding to afford outside views of the museum. The Glenbow says this helps to create a new identity that’s “far more conducive to the important current conversations around cultural inclusion happening in Canada and across the globe.” 

“Working with Maya Lin to reimagine Glenbow represents a significant new chapter in the revitalization of Calgary’s downtown,” Mayor Jyoti Gondek said in a press statement. “The incorporation of international mastery alongside an incredible team of local experts is a true reflection of what makes Calgary such a unique place.”

Lin is also working on commissions for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago and the 68,000-square-foot Museum of Chinese in America expansion in New York City. Another building project, a 25,000-square-foot studio space to complement the Fisher Center at Bard College, broke ground this year in Upstate New York.