Douglas Cardinal

Cardinal's parents met in 1926, and in the first half of the 20th century women had very little status and rights.

The patriarchal society did not recognize educated women like Frances Cardinal.

However, his father's tribe's societal norms accepted a matrilineal culture, where women are very respected and admired.

These cultural ideas shaped Cardinal's upbringing and affected his worldview and relationship with his heritage.

He has recalled that his mother told him at a young age, “You’re going to be an architect.”

Cardinal grew up a couple of miles outside the small city of Red Deer, Alberta.

Cardinal was educated at St. Joseph's Convent Catholic, a boarding school for children who lived in the country and wanted to go beyond the 8th grade, which was all that most one-room country schools offered.

Cardinal finished high school there.

The much-loved Daughters of Wisdom who ran the boarding school taught both Catholic and Protestant children there, and like many other boarders, Cardinal was taught about arts and culture by the Sisters.

He has said that this religious school influenced him immensely.

Living a few miles away from the rest of his family made him focus on his academic achievements.

Traditional sacred architecture and its role in culture made him want to create spaces as powerful and inspirational as churches and basilicas.

It also ignited in him a passion for architecture in those early years.

Douglas Joseph Cardinal (born 7 March 1934) is a Canadian architect based in Ottawa, Ontario.

His flowing architecture marked with smooth curvilinear forms is influenced by his Indigenous heritage as well as European Expressionist architecture.

His passion for unconventional forms and appreciation of nature and landscape were present in his life from a very young age, and consequently developed into the unique architectural style he has employed throughout his career.

He wanted to create buildings responding to nature and the organic rhythm of life, which was unprecedented in the 1950s.

In his third year of studies, he was told by the director of UBC that he had "a wrong background" for the program and the profession.

After he left Vancouver and returned to Red Deer to start working at local architectural firms as a draftsman.

His ejection from UBC made it impossible for him to apply to Canadian universities again.

Cardinal also wanted a change of scenery due to racism towards Indigenous people in his home country so decided to head south, stopping in Arizona and Mexico, and later settling in Texas.

In 1953, he started studying architecture at the University of British Columbia (UBC) but was forced to leave two years later due to his radical ideas.

His different approach toward architecture did not align with the ideas of modernism at the time.

Eventually, he attended the University of Texas at Austin, from which he graduated with a degree in Architecture in 1963.

In university, he also studied cultural anthropology, due to his cultural heritage and philosophy based on the sacredness of life and nature.

He wanted to study people and did not feel that the buildings around him were designed around people.

His philosophy was inspired by architect Rudolph Steiner whom Douglas studied at University of Texas.

Steiner's work led Douglas to study anthropomorphism, which he applied to his work.

The idea of anthropomorphism and its concept of responding to human behavior, natural cycles of life and the beauty of sacred land and tectonics aligned with Cardinal's cultural heritage.

Another inspiration for Cardinal were works of Frank Lloyd Wright.

He appreciated his organic way of responding to the landscape with the use of natural materials, such as stone and brick.

In Texas, he accepted his Indigenous heritage and one of his professors even encouraged him to learn more about his background.

Cardinal opened his private practice in 1964, and the same year he was commissioned to design St. Mary's Church in Red Deer, Alberta.

Construction was completed in 1968, and it has since been recognized as a prominent example in the history of Canadian architecture.

Cardinal is perhaps best known for his designs of the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec (1989) and the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. (1998).

He is considered one of Canada's most influential contemporary Indigenous architects.

Born in Calgary, Alberta, to parents Joseph and Frances Cardinal, Douglas Cardinal is the oldest of eight children.

His father was of Siksika (Blackfoot), French and Ojibwe heritage, while his mother was of German, French and Mohawk/Métis descent.

His mother worked as a nurse and was well educated.

In 2007, the church was featured on a Canada Post stamp series featuring four Canadian architects to commemorate the centennial of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC).