Shapes of buildings seem to flow from their surroundings in models and photographs of Douglas Cardinal’s architecture, on display at the University of Calgary.

The designs actually grow from roots in the history of architecture, says the acclaimed Calgary-born architect.

A retrospective portfolio of Cardinal’s work opened last weekend at the Nickle Arts Museum and runs through July 27. It’s the Canadian debut of “Celebrate Cardinal: a portfolio,” which premiered last fall at Canadian Architecture in Chicago Week.

Cardinal, 68, grew up in Red Deer and practised his profession in Edmonton for a couple of decades. He moved to Ottawa in the mid-’80s when he won the Museum of Civilization project in a national competition of 80 architects.

“It was seven years of 10- to 14-hour days. It took a lot out of me,” he said. He had to move from Alberta because the challenge was so large.

He said the Museum of Civilization is one of his favourite buildings because people appreciate it. His early favourite was the 1968 St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Red Deer.

Cardinal’s native ancestry allows him to bring knowledge from two worlds to the table. He said he believes his background has benefited his life and career despite the discriminatory attitudes Native people in Canada and the United States used to face. It’s no longer fashionable to marginalize people, he noted.

“In other countries, I’m perceived as an architect, which is what I should be perceived as,” said Cardinal.

When he studied the history of architecture as a student, he discovered the Baroque and Renaissance idea of man at the centre. He cites the influence of Scottish architects and notes he has seen architects in Hungary doing the same thing.

His organic architecture is inspired by the idea of buildings as a celebration of people, and by the history of architecture.

Cardinal said he loves the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods as well as the centuries-earlier Baroque and Renaissance.

“When architecture combines sculpture, painting, music, it’s the mother of the arts,” he said.

Architects work on both sides of the brain, the artistic right side for building concepts and the calculating left. For design work, Cardinal’s office was the first in North America to computerize totally, with CAD applications on a Unix system in the 1970s.

The new technology links to the old tradition of the architect as master builder, because the entire building can be constructed on the computer at full scale. The Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, now under construction at Regina, can be co-ordinated from Ottawa through computer links as engineers and tradespeople carry out the work.

Cardinal’s work in Alberta includes the provincial government services building at Ponoka, the Grande Prairie Regional College and the Edmonton Space Sciences Centre.

The exhibit at the Nickle is presented by the Canadian Architectural Archives, a national collection housed at the U of C. Its collections include Cardinal’s early work.

Curator Linda Fraser says the archives are a resource for architects, engineers, renovators, heritage preservation groups and historical researchers. As a national collection, the archives get research and reference questions from all over the world.

The CAA has started a fund-raising campaign with a $1-million target aimed at increasing programming, including acquiring and processing more collections of architects’ work.

The Canadian Architectural Archives are also funded by federal and provincial grants and supported by the U of C.

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East Village redevelopment plans head back to city council Monday for a review of the development process.

A proposal by Ald. Druh Farrell for an urban design panel goes to a public hearing, along with the land use for the area.

The urban design panel wouldn’t have any council members, and would be an outside body charged with determining the best design for the area, Farrell said.

The city owns about half the land in the area, which it vested in the East Village Development Corp. The EVDC is a joint venture of the city and a consortium of three private-sector companies, Pointe of View, Royop and UBG Builders.

Farrell said that in East Village, the city is partner, regulator and developer, so there is the potential for conflict or the perception of it.

An urban design panel has been used in other cities to raise the bar on design.

“What we are trying to achieve in East Village is a healthy public realm and good urban design,” she said.