2024 Heritage Calgary Awards

Winner of the 2024 Heritage Calgary Award,
Lifetime Achievement:
Darryl Cariou

Darryl Cariou has worked in heritage conservation for more than 30 years, including managing major restoration projects and creating and implementing municipal heritage programs. Darryl established and managed the City of Calgary Historic Building Program to oversee 30 City-owned historic buildings. Over the course of his career, Darryl has worked to preserve and maintain historical assets across Calgary and Alberta. He is truly passionate about his work and loves to share his insights on history, heritage and preservation. 

Heritage Calgary connected with Darryl to learn a bit more about his career and his take on heritage preservation.

Can you describe the main goal of your initiative and the inspiration behind it?

My goal with the City of Calgary, my goal as a heritage conservationist, is to build a culture of preservation and conservation, so that our society will see the value of historic conservation and want to invest in heritage conservation.

Why is it important to preserve heritage buildings in a modern city like Calgary?

Well, it's our history. I could quote you all kinds of quotes from people, if you don't know your history, you're doomed to repeat it. But I just think it makes our environment more livable and more interesting. There's something about the materials, the scale and the design details of historic buildings that I don't know many people that don't appreciate them when they're pointed out. So I think it's a question of ultimate livability.

 How has this initiative helped engage the public or specific groups, such as youth or residents, in the project?  

That's fundamental to heritage conservation. There needs to be support from the grassroots level. When I worked at the City of Calgary, they have a City Hall school there, where classes come in for a week of classes in City Hall. And I would regularly go and talk to students at City Hall school, getting them interested in history at a young age.

What challenges have you often faced when you take on a conservation project, whether it's residential, office, or commercial?

Our culture in Canada, particularly Western Canada, has been one of renewal, one of boom and bust, one of always looking ahead, and really maybe not appreciating what came before. So trying to get people to understand and embrace that some of the things from the past do have value and can add value to things today.

Why is it important for people who live here today to understand that past?

I think it helps people achieve some attachment to the place they live. People talk about Calgary being a place of volunteers and people aren't going to volunteer if they don't care about where they are or about what's around them. So I think, again, it just adds to livability. Especially new Calgarians, when they can learn about Calgary, they'll feel more attached to Calgary. They'll be more engaged citizens. They'll be more involved in their community. They'll want to volunteer more. They'll be willing to be engaged more on community or city initiatives,

Looking to the future now, what do you think Calgary should do or ought to do in order to become better at preserving the history that still exists?

I think it starts with public awareness and sometimes people in building conservation think you just like really old things and our early history, 1912. But I can look out the window here at downtown Calgary. One of my favorite buildings is the Nexen Building designed by Fred Valentine. I want to say from the 1980s. So our history continues. The downtown buildings in Calgary that were built during the first oil boom, are part of our history, and we can't forget that. We're seeing some of them start to be repurposed now for residential buildings. I think that's great because those buildings stay as a reminder of our history.

And we have a boom-bust history. And while there's some negative aspects to it, it is our history, and we should recognize it and celebrate it. History can be these later buildings, I’m not in the museum business.

The Heritage Calgary Awards celebrate the diverse heritage of our shared home. Every second year we honour those who have made efforts to identify, preserve, and promote heritage in Calgary to help enrich our communities.