Calgary's culture scene runs on repurposed industrial space: a 1967 planetarium turned contemporary art museum, a brewery district full of studios and a public library shaped like a chinook arch. Add Canada's deepest Blackfoot holdings and a five-theatre performing arts centre.
Contemporary art museum in the 1967 Centennial Planetarium, a brutalist concrete landmark by McMillan Long & Associates. Three galleries plus the domed former Star Chamber theatre. Open Wed–Sun 11:00–18:00, Thu to 21:00; expect large-scale Canadian and international installations.
Snøhetta and DIALOG's 2018 library, an oval of hexagonal aluminium and glass straddling a working LRT line. The western red cedar atrium spirals up four storeys. Free entry daily; the Great Reading Room and Indigenous Languages Resource Centre are on level four.
Private non-collecting contemporary gallery on the fourth floor of the Atlantic Avenue Art Block in Inglewood, opened 2012 by Jim and Susan Hill. Roughly 15,000 sq ft of daylit exhibition space with three shows a year and an outdoor terrace over 9th Avenue SE.
1891 sandstone mansion built for Senator James Lougheed, a 14,000 sq ft Victorian house museum with restored period rooms, stained glass by McCausland of Toronto and 2.8 acres of Beaulieu Gardens. Reopened after major conservation work on the sandstone facade.
While the main Glenbow building undergoes its JR Shaw Centre rebuild, its programme runs from The Edison on 5th Avenue SW. Rotating shows drawn from 33,000 artworks and Canada's largest Blackfoot, Cree and Stoney Nakoda holdings, plus the Alberta history archive.
Canada's third-largest performing arts centre: six venues including the 1,800-seat Jack Singer Concert Hall, home of the Calgary Philharmonic, with its Carthy Organ of 6,040 pipes. Theatre Calgary and Alberta Theatre Projects share the Max Bell and Martha Cohen stages.
Independent two-screen cinema at 617 8th Avenue SW, running since 1976 and Calgary's main art-house and festival house. Hosts CUFF each April and the Calgary International Film Festival in September; repertory Canadian and world cinema the rest of the year.
Nine interlocking terracotta-clad towers by Allied Works Architecture holding 2,000 instruments and artefacts, the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and the restored 1905 King Eddy hotel. The Rolling Stones' mobile studio and TONTO synthesizer are both playable exhibits.
1912 sandstone school in Marda Loop converted in 2017 into an arts hub: 40 studios, the Treasury and Sway galleries, plus resident companies. Open weekdays for gallery visits; the ground-floor Fireside Room hosts talks and the courtyard has rotating public art.
Calgary's oldest neighbourhood, platted 1875, with Recordland's roughly one million LPs, The Livery Shop's Alberta-made design goods and a run of vintage dealers between 11th and 13th Streets SE. Cold Garden Brewery's yard is the informal artists' meeting spot.
University museum in the Taylor Family Digital Library holding 7,000 artworks, a major textile collection of Central Asian and Anatolian weaving, and the Nickle Numismatic collection of some 20,000 ancient Greek and Roman coins. Open Mon–Fri, Sat to 17:00.
Improv company founded in 1977 by Keith Johnstone, the British theorist who invented Theatresports and wrote 'Impro' — the format now used worldwide. Weekend shows at 20:00 in the Crossroads Market space, with the Gorilla Theatre and Micetro formats in rotation.