It has been six years since planning began for the $205 million renovation of the Glenbow Museum, and staff are now back on site working toward an opening expected in about a year. “We took occupancy of the building in April this year, so we have been out of the building for a really long time, and it has been really wonderful to have everybody working here,” said Melanie Kjorlien, Glenbow president and CEO. “Our goal is that we want to be announcing an opening date to the community this fall, so it is roughly going to be a year from now, give or take a month, that is what we are really targeting.” Kjorlien says the team now has a blank slate to work with as it plans where to showcase exhibits across all floors of the museum. “Most people might not realize that there are eight floors in this building,” she said. “Previously the public could access five floors. What we have done with the renovation is we have made all eight floors accessible to the public.” “People will have a different experience on every floor, and the fact that they are all really unique and different is also what is really exciting.” Kjorlien says the architect and construction teams have also brought natural light into the previously dark building and created a street-front entrance. “It did not look like it was a museum, it looked like maybe it was a warehouse,” she said. “Before we were a bit of a fortress, there were virtually no windows in the building, we did not have a front door, you did not have access when you were inside the building to the city, and when you were outside the building, you did not have access into the museum, so you had no sense of what was happening in this place.” Priyanka Vaid, who heads the conservation team that works on the eighth floor, says the large lab now houses all four specialties, including textiles, objects, paper, painting and sculpture. When the museum opens, the public will be able to view conservation work in action. “There is a lot that goes behind preparing an exhibit and the work behind the scenes,” she said. “I think visitors are quite interested in knowing those things, and we would like to show visitors how an exhibit comes to life, because there is a lot of background work going on.” Vaid says the labs opened in April 2026 and the team has been working steadily to prepare artifacts. “Once an exhibit is selected, and objects are chosen by the curator, that is when conservation comes in,” she said. “We would go and examine each object. If there is something wrong, we would make notes about it, and then according to our notes, we would bring each object into the conservation lab.” Sam Brown, marketing and communications manager, says during renovations the 250,000 pieces in the museum’s collection remained on site throughout construction. “We worked really closely with our partners, Elliston, and our engineering team to make sure items were protected,” she said. “That humidity controls were maintained to make sure the new HVAC systems, electrical systems, all of that could be done without any risk to the collections.” Brown says the public will soon be able to view parts of the collection not on display through new windows on several floors. When the museum opens in about a year, she says general admission will be free thanks to a donation from the Shaw Family Foundation. “They gave $25 million to an endowment that will cover the revenue that Glenbow previously earned from general admissions,” she said. “So there will still be some special exhibits or events or programs that have a fee associated, but general admission will always be free, so coming in and seeing some of what we have happening here — the exhibitions, access to visible storage — all of that will be free for everyone.”
