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Fortney: A half-century on, designer of Calgary Tower still shrouded in mystery

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He was a champion of the city’s pathway system and a leader in parks and conservation nationwide. The Bill Milne Trail in Kananaskis is named for the Calgary architect, whom the late Peter Lougheed credited for the vision of separating the park west of the city into both a recreational area and park area.

So, when Milne died in 2008 at the age of 84, his obituary noted these and other accomplishments. Why, though, did it not mention that he was also the architect behind one of the city’s most iconic structures?

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“Because it wasn’t his design,” explained his widow Lorraine on a recent day. “I knew Bill wouldn’t want me to write that, as it would be dishonest to the actual architect.”

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According to the woman who was married to Milne for more than a half-century, news reports over the years have often incorrectly credited Milne with the final work that was opened to the public on June 30, 1968.

“He got the whole thing off the ground,” said Lorraine Milne. “He was glad it was going to be built, but he certainly wished they had used his design.”

Photo taken Nov. 7, 1967: The top of the Husky Tower has almost taken its full shape by fall 1967. Calgary Herald archives
Photo taken Nov. 7, 1967: The top of the Husky Tower has almost taken its full shape by fall 1967. Calgary Herald archives Calgary

On Saturday, Calgarians will mark the 50th birthday of the Calgary Tower with a community block party. The area of 9th Avenue between Centre Street and 1st Street S.E. will be closed to traffic so that the public can participate in an event that will feature free ice cream, live music and 50-per-cent-discounted rides to the top of the 191-metre tall tower.

On Wednesday, the tower’s current owners, Aspen Properties  — along with city and provincial officials and a handful of seniors who worked on the tower 50 years ago — gathered at its observation deck for a V.I.P. reception in advance of Saturday’s block party.

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Greg Guatto, president and CEO of Aspen Properties, talked about how the tower famed for its flaming cauldron during the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics has long symbolized the city’s ambition and growth, and “has continued to unify the community.”

Mayor Naheed Nenshi described it as the city’s “literal beacon” of hope and light.

The cauldron on the top of the Calgary Tower burns to honour the gold medal performances by Mikael Kingsbury in moguls and the Canadian Figure Skating Team on Monday February 12, 2018. Darren Makowichuk/Postmedia
The cauldron on the top of the Calgary Tower burns to honour the gold medal performances by Mikael Kingsbury in moguls and the Canadian Figure Skating Team on Monday February 12, 2018. Darren Makowichuk/Postmedia

Katie Urness, general manager of the Calgary Tower, also announced new exhibits on the inner walls of the observation deck, along with a new theatre room and inner LED lights, which will complement the LED exterior lights.

Also on hand were brothers Clarence, Doug and Ed Wagenaar, who as young men helped to install 175,000 square feet of drywall as part of the tower’s construction in 1967.

“Our names are in the concrete,” said Clarence Wagenaar proudly. “It was a challenging job, but we got it done and on time.”

While the decades have seen many a gleaming skyscraper rise to block the Calgary Tower’s 360-degree view of the city and surrounding, the structure known for its first three years as the Husky Tower still holds a special place in the hearts of many of us.

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A view of Municipal Plaza, the City Hall complex and East Village from the Calgary Tower in Calgary on Wednesday, June 27, 2018. Jim Wells/Postmedia
A view of Municipal Plaza, the City Hall complex and East Village from the Calgary Tower in Calgary on Wednesday, June 27, 2018. Jim Wells/Postmedia

It didn’t take long in this booming oil town for the tower to lose its tallest building status, when in 1984 the Petro-Canada Centre went up a few blocks north, followed not long after by Bankers Hall. It’s now the seventh-tallest structure in the downtown core.

Still, a half-century anniversary is a milestone worth celebrating.

Many citations of the project list architects as “Bill Milne, A. Dale & Associates” and a sign inside the Calgary Tower’s observation deck credits Milne, but this tells only part of the story.

Back in the early 1960s, Milne got the ball rolling by pitching a 1967 Centennial project that would be “a dramatic accent of monumental proportions”; a tower that “could be a bold stroke which would truly catch the Calgary spirit.”

A sketch of what may be the original design of the Calgary Tower from the book Unbuilt Calgary by Stephanie White is displayed in Calgary on Wednesday, June 27, 2018. The original drawing is from the Archives of Alberta. Jim Wells/Postmedia
A sketch of what may be the original design of the Calgary Tower from the book Unbuilt Calgary by Stephanie White is displayed in Calgary on Wednesday, June 27, 2018. The original drawing is from the Archives of Alberta. Jim Wells/Postmedia

According to his wife, “Bill did do a beautiful drawing of a tower,” which was later rejected in favour of one by the firm led by British expat architect Albert Dale, chosen when Canadian Pacific’s real estate arm, Marathon Realty, and Husky Oil took over the $3.5-million project. (The tower, by the way, never got a Centennial designation.)

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“When they bought the project, they changed where it was going,” said Lorraine. “He didn’t complain or make a fuss; that wasn’t Bill’s way.”

In her 2012 book Unbuilt Calgary, author and architect Stephanie White chronicles Milne’s simple sketch. The tower in the sketch had a top that was a mix of the spaceship style of the Calgary Tower and New York’s Empire State building; and, the plan was for a welded steel plate to sit lightly on the ground similar to the Eiffel Tower.

The tower also ended up being built a few blocks south of the site proposed in one of Milne’s aerial renditions, which had it in an empty lot somewhere near Knox United Church. White credited the tower’s top design to Milne, whose sketch was similar but not identical. This similarity likely led to his name being on the architects’ credits.

Lorraine Milne didn’t agree with that assessment.

“Bill’s design was more like the one in Toronto,” she said, referring to the CN Tower and its tall spire. “I think his was better.”

I spent three days trying to pin down the whereabouts of Dale, the other architect credited on the project. Born in 1927 in England, Dale came to Calgary in the 1950s and retired in the late 1970s. Since then, no one at the Alberta Association of Architects or the Calgary Tower knows what became of Dale.

Late Wednesday, hours after this story is filed, I get an email from someone saying their name is Ashley Dale. She writes (I called and got voice mail, so yes it’s a she) that her grandfather Albert Dale is alive and living in Mexico. “We are proud to say that our grandfather designed the Calgary Tower,” she writes, “and worked on many projects in Calgary during the ’60s and ’70s, including the Glenbow Museum.”

Still, that double credit on the Calgary Tower’s design will remain, at least for now, for this iconic piece of Calgary’s history and future.

vfortney@postmedia.com

Twitter: @ValFortney

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