Photography by KM Photography Interiors
Designed in 1964 and one of the first projects by Toronto architects Webb Zerafa Menkès Housden, Alberta’s 12-storey International Style Calgary House is notable for the lobby’s monumental high-relief sculpture Pan and the Three Graces by Krystyna Sadowska (1912–1994). The Polish-Canadian artist’s work looks like an abstracted Brutalist update of the bas reliefs symbolizing gods in Babylonian architecture. The artwork’s muscularity, curves and patinated materials palette provided inspiration for the renovation of the lobby and former restaurant as a hospitality-driven arrival and tenant lounge. The lobby has a terracotta-wrapped concierge desk, patterned stone flooring, a white-oak grid ceiling with glowing globes, and hand-applied plaster walls; oak paneling and custom sconces add warmth. The lounge has seating pockets, meeting nooks, a boardroom and a curved bar organized around a hammered-bronze fireplace that doubles as sculpture and divider. Battered-wall arches connecting the spaces reinforce the monumentality theme.
As appeared in the July/August 2026 Best of Canada Awards issue of Canadian Interiors magazine.
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