The Queen Elizabeth II Planetarium

Written By Dane Ryksen

  • 13500 112th Avenue 

  • Architects: Denis Mulvaney of the City Architects’ Department / Stantec Architecture

  • Constructed: 1959-60 / 2017-20

  • Designation: Municipal Historic Resource

In 1958 the City put out a request. A Royal Tour was coming through town the next year and they wanted a project to commemorate it.

Ideas came flooding in. First came a fountain, then a three-faced trilon meant to symbolize the three levels of government. But it was the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s proposal, for the nation’s first municipal planetarium, that captured the imagination of the general public. Thanks to an “intensive campaign” by the Astronomical Society, “support was obtained from service clubs, church groups, professional organizations, and news media.”

It made sense. 1958 was the time of science fiction and space-age optimism. To most, humanity was entering a new era as the world’s two superpowers battled for supremacy of the cosmos. The previous October threw the West into a panic when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. Then again with Sputnik II and its live traveller, the dog Laika, the next month. Then came the United States’ Explorer I in January. Then their Vanguard I in March.

Although Edmonton was far removed from the Space Race, a cosmic fever overtook it. By January 1959, the project’s “front-running contender” was the planetarium and “the once-popular 94-foot-high trilon, costing ‘under $60,000,’ [seemed] to be losing favour.” Among its major supporters was City Council’s own Mayor William Hawrelak and Alderwoman Laurette Douglas, the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, and “the majority of the architectural group” responsible for developing the Tour-project.

A planetarium committee soon formed and City Council’s Financial Committee invited them to pitch their idea. The group — consisting of Professors Keeping and Gads, F. Loehde, F. Jersen, D. Rosenfield, and E. Milton — envisioned a “round building [that] would be a multi-purpose structure. Besides seating 70 to 80 under the dome, it would have a lecture room with about the same capacity, a kitchen and a display room, for photographic and other exhibits.”

The Edmonton Journal lauded the proposal:

“The type of planetarium proposed for the park is a product of the twentieth century. [...] As compared with a trilon or similar monument, a planetarium has the very great advantage of being entertaining and instructive as well as aesthetically appealing to many persons. It adds comfort to ‘star gazing’ one of the oldest of the human pastimes, and helps to make astronomy, probably the oldest of all the sciences, intelligible to the layman. It can be used to instruct students and to interest people in the sciences generally. Its very novelty makes it singularly attractive and it has proven value for a magnet of tourism. With the exploration of outer space begun, and the interest in the ‘heavens’ rapidly increasing, the addition of a planetarium to Edmonton’s assets would be very timely, indeed.”

The City’s Finance Committee agreed and on March 3rd, in a three-to-one vote, recommended that City Council pursue the “construction of a planetarium, estimated to cost $105,000.”

When it went to Council on the 9th, an hour’s discussion followed. Some still weren’t convinced. Alderman Clif Roy was its staunchest opponent and dubbed it “an absolute waste of money” given the state of the City’s finances. A more nuanced position, held by Alderman Donald Bowen, charged that “the idea of a planetarium was only being considered by reason of the Queen’s visit. He said people just want something for her to dedicate.” A seven-to-four vote decided in the planetarium’s favour.

Work began that July, but nothing except basic site-preparation had been completed by the time of the Royal Tour that summer. When Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip arrived on the 22nd, all that met them was a patch of dirt. Instead, Mayor Hawrelak presented them a model of the planned facility. Speaking to the Royal couple and thousands of Edmontonians, Hawrelak explained:

“In commemoration of this royal visit in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and fifty-nine, it is the wish of your loyal and devoted people to erect a building of masonry, brick, and stone at this location. A structure that will serve during the years ahead as a practical and pleasurable monument to perpetuate the memory of this great occasion. The aesthetic value of this Planetarium will soon give the development of the Canadian parkland, an additional beauty dedicated to the welfare and convenience of our citizens. May it always be in keeping with the spirit in which you come to us, friendly, warm hearted and sincere.

We respectfully request of your Majesty’s permission to name this building The Queen Elizabeth II Planetarium. In your presence today we humbly demonstrate our allegiance, our gratitude and our affection.”

Her Majesty granted it, and Canada’s first public and municipally-owned planetarium[1] gained its title.

The building’s design, the work of the City of Edmonton’s Architects’ Department, is an eclectic mix of the Expressionist and Internationalist styles. Maitland, Hucker, and Ricketts write in A Guide to Canadian Architectural Styles that, “Expressionism is another approach to modern architecture. Popular in Canada from the 1960s through the 1970s, it rejects the sometimes rigid form of Internationalism in order to exploit the structural and expressive possibilities of new construction techniques.”

However, as local heritage architect David Murray explains, it does “exhibit elements of the common International Style that express lightness, including the extensive use of glass in aluminium curtain wall, expressive framing of the exterior building elements, dramatic structural expression, and a sense that the building is ‘floating.’ The design may have also have been influenced by a popular fascination for space-age design in the 1950s — it has the appearance of a spacecraft, hovering off the ground.”

Whatever its style, the October 1960 issue of Stardust — the journal of the R.A.S.C. Edmonton-branch — described it best:

“The building itself is an architectural gem, a credit to the city architects who so capably surmounted all the problems arising in the construction of a circular edifice. Made of hewn fieldstone, with windows of glass set in gold-anodized aluminum, all surmounted by a brilliant orange dome, the structure makes an impressive appearance in its lovely setting of Coronation Park. The interior is beautiful beyond words. Variegated hardwood, terrazzo and tile floors, walls and ceilings of various types of decor, vertical venetian blinds in the foyer, lovely drapes in the lecture rooms enhanced by a choice selection of potted plants contributed by the Parks Department bine to give the visitor an impression of almost drawing-room luxuriousness, and somehow, of more spaciousness than one anticipates.”

“Edmonton’s star-studded classroom” opened on September 22nd, 1960. “Brigadier A. Simester, President of the Edmonton & District Council of Churches, gave the invocation with the very appropriate reading of Psalm 8: ‘When I survey the Thy heavens, the work of Thy hands, the sun and the moon, which Thou hast ordained, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him.’” With that, Alderman Mitchell and Mayor Elmer Roper read a congratulatory letter from the Queen’s secretary and declared the Planetarium open. The Journal described the wonderment that awaited its visitors:

“For ordinary viewing of the stars the observer is theoretically sitting on the surface of the Earth with the heavens above him. By projecting an outline of the continents on the ceiling, the observer feels as though he is sitting right at the centre of the Earth looking out through the land masses and the oceans into the universe beyond. The moon and sun can be brought up so close the impression is given that they can be touched just by reaching out. In fact the planetarium can take the observer on a ‘trip’ to the moon or put him out in space whirling with the sputniks.”

The City Parks Department leased the building to the R.A.S.C. for programming — the group appointed a twenty-two year-old member, Ian McLennan, as director. Although McLennan lacked any formal training in planetarium programming, the facility flourished under his watch — Murray attributes it to McLennan’s experience working at local radio and television stations. Through him, it followed “its own unprecedented course. The Edmonton planetarium, while small, went on to become one of the most respected and innovative public-planetariums on the continent at the time, garnering a significant international reputation.”

By 1965 the Queen Elizabeth II Planetarium grossed 17,000 annual visits. McLennan left shortly after to pursue a career at the Strasenburgh Planetarium in Rochester, but told C.T.V. News in 2016 that “Edmonton had a better show going on than they did New York.” David Rodgers succeeded McLennan, and continued to foster the facility’s stellar growth. 25,000 visited in 1966 — 33,500 visited in 1967.

Waning interest in space exploration following Apollo 11 directly affected the Edmonton planetarium. By the mid-1970s, its future looked increasingly bleak and attendance rarely peaked past 12,000 visitors. With the opening of its replacement — the new Edmonton Space Science Centre — nearby, the Queen Elizabeth II Planetarium was unceremoniously closed on December 31st, 1983. Stardust remarked:

“It is with some sadness, certainly with a sense of nostalgia, that we announce the closing of the Queen Elizabeth Planetarium. It has served the public for over 23 years. During that time just over one million people saw a program in the small seven-meter diameter theatre or participated in one of our community astronomy events. But December 31 does not mark the end of the Planetarium. We hope it will continue to function for many years to come […] No, December 31 doesn’t represent the end of the Queen Elizabeth Planetarium — merely its well-earned retirement into a more leisurely lifestyle.”

That never happened and for thirty-six years, the Planetarium sat abandoned. By 2015 it was a husk, more a sad monument to our own disinterest in built heritage than a beacon of space-age wonder. It needed a vision — thankfully a three-way coalition between the City, Telus World of Science, and Royal Astronomical Society of Canada had one.

An extensive restoration was carried out between 2017 and 2020. Included was the replacement of its original, water-logged dome, the retention and renovation of many of its original interior features, and a complete exterior rehabilitation. The rear of the building, once home to offices, now houses Coronation Park’s public restrooms. Touch-ups to Heinrich Eichner’s 1965[2] zodiac murals, located on the pavement outside, are expected to follow shortly. After its completion, the renovated planetarium “will be a multi-purpose facility shared between TWOSE and RASC. The primary usages envisioned are: programming that takes advantage of the QEP’s natural setting, astronomy programming delivered by RASC, and facility rentals for functions up to 60 people.”

The rehabilitation of the Queen Elizabeth II Planetarium represents a positive shift within Edmonton's appreciation of its modernist heritage. Even a decade ago, a building of its age, style, and condition likely would've wound up at the scrapyard. But as David Murray says, this Municipal Historic Resource “remains relevant. It has proven to be sufficiently robust to indefinitely continue its role as nourishment for the imaginations of our children.”

Image Gallery:

Author’s Notes:

  1. Despite repeated claims to the contrary, Edmonton’s Queen Elizabeth II Planetarium is not Canada’s first planetarium. It is Canada’s first municipally-owned and run planetarium. It was actually the fourth built in the country. See: “Planetarium For City Park Would Be Fourth In Canada,” Edmonton Journal, February 4, 1959.

  2. Likewise, despite repeated claims to Heinrich Eichner’s artwork dating to 1966, an early 1965 news report suggest they were already well underway, thus a 1965 date is reflected here. See: Dorothy Barnhouse, “Husband And Wife Display Art,” Edmonton Journal, February 1, 1965.

Sources:

Dane Ryksen
Previous

Street Railway Substation No.600
Next

The Haines / McIntyre Residence