Work on the new Royal Alberta Museum downtown has reached a major milestone, and members of the provincial and federal governments were on hand to mark it.
On Tuesday, officials recognized that construction work on the new downtown museum was completed.
Construction on the building started in 2013, and RAM is expected to reopen in late 2017.
The cost of the new museum, including construction of the facility, is $375.5 million – with the province providing $253 million, and the federal government covering $122.5 million.
“When all of the exhibits are here, it’s going to be a landmark, a signature piece of architecture,” Infrastructure Minister Brian Mason said.
While construction is completed, interior work continues, and museum artifacts will be moved in after that.
“The museum has something like 10 million artifacts, most of them have been in storage, now they have the capacity to display many more of those articles for the public to see,” Neil McFarlane with Alberta Infrastructure said.
While the museum is entirely new construction, some features have been brought over from the building that stood on the same site before, the old post office.
Murals that were up on the walls of the post office for decades have been integrated into the façade of the new museum, and the artist who completed those pieces in the mid-1960s is glad to see they have found a new home.
“I did the murals when I was 25, so it is 51 years [later],” artist Ernestine Tahedl said.
Tahedl finished the work, and moved to Montreal to create artwork for Expo ’67, and she never saw her work installed on the old building.
“I’m humbled, I’m thrilled, I’m very happy,” Tahedl said.
With files from Susan Amerongen
