'All of our history will be in a landfill,' say advocates of saving old RAM building

Despite the former Royal Alberta Museum building's demolition sentence, Edmontonians who want to see the building saved haven't given up.

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"I became an architect because I went to lectures in the lecture theatre here," Shafraaza Kaba told CTV News Edmonton in an interview on Tuesday in front of the empty building in Glenora.

From 1967 to 2015, the Royal Alberta Museum (RAM), formerly named the Provincial Museum and Archives of Alberta, lived there. The new Royal Alberta Museum opened downtown in 2018.

Kaba, whose firm Ask for a Better World specializes in green builds and retrofits, believes "the most sustainable building is one that already exists."

And that hundreds – possibly thousands – of other Albertans' lives were shaped by the former museum like his.

These two ideas are the cornerstone of a movement calling on the Alberta government to abandon its plans to put a park on the site.

Kaba is giving tours of the building's exterior design elements on Sunday, Alberta Day, hoping to educate people about its significance.

Built under the supervision of Australian Raymond O. Harrison as part of Canada's Confederation Memorial Centennial Program, the former museum is an interesting meeting of prairie and contemporary influences, Kaba believes.

"Being of the era of the 60s, this was built with Edmonton's character, referencing modernism, which really shows in the building's form and how the windows are detailed and recessed and creating a rhythm on the exterior.

"Also how it's a very simple collection of boxes. But this particular composition has really nice subtleties in its design. Some of the walls are angled or splayed out. Some of the recesses are there to help shade from excess sunlight," he explained.

"We're trying to really galvanize the community around how we can protect our heritage and architecture, especially for a young city like Edmonton. We unfortunately demolish way too many buildings and we lose that sense of history and that sense of place, our memories, where we, frankly, grew up."

Marlena Wyman, a former provincial archives employee who worked in the building for 25 years, speculated, "I think part of the problem is that Alberta is a young province, and for some reason, we don't consider ourselves world-class. Maybe we have low self esteem or something.

"There are other places in the world that understand the value of heritage … which is important in our identity. What is our identity?"

The government says the building needs about $200 million in repairs to be brought up to code, including structural restoration and asbestos abatement, and that potential buyers have walked away after seeing the work that is needed.

It says the building's annual maintenance costs are about $700,000.

"We strongly encourage everyone with ideas for the new green space to respond to our survey and share what they would like to see included," infrastructure press secretary Benji Smith told CTV News Edmonton.

"It has storage space, it has gallery space, it has offices, boardroom, beautiful theatre, cafeteria," listed Wyman.

"If all we do is tear down and renew, it feels to me like sometime in the future, all of our history will be in a landfill. Archeologists of the future will look through and say, 'This was a history of destruction and waste.' And it is."

She is encouraging people to sign either a public petition or a petition by the Alberta NDP to save the building and to contact their local representative.

Kaba's tour, which he will provide alongside architect Darrel Babuk, is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Sunday.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Miriam Valdes-Carletti