Hanna roundhouse on track to restoration
The first time architect Darrel Babuk developed a serious interest in the Hanna Roundhouse was when he saw it in a Nickelback video nearly a decade ago. Now, his Edmonton-based architecture firm has taken the first steps to restore it.
“This truly is a find,” Babuk said. “It’s museum-quality. The fact that a building this size, is in this good of shape, is truly a treasure.”
Babuk was prompted to talk about the roundhouse in southern Alberta after reading about MacEwan University’s excavation of the buried Canadian Northern Railway roundhouse in Edmonton.
The Hann around house and turntable, located about 200 kilometres northeast of Calgary, is likely the oldest one left standing on the Canadian Prairies. Between 1912 and 1913, 10 bays were built, and five more were added on between 1920 and 1921. In the 1960s, a manufacturing company bought it, and at some point it was used as a cattle auction mart, but eventually it was abandoned.
“It’s the biggest building in Hanna,” Babuk said. “It simply got abandoned. Many of the roundhouses in Alberta were built with brick … this one happens to be made out of concrete.”
Babuk, whose father was a station agent for the Canadian Pacific Railway, grew up interested in rail history. While living out east, he saw Nickelback’s video for Photograph, and recognized it right away. Eventually, he migrated back west and settled in Edmonton, and the Hanna Roundhouse Society invited him to a meeting.
His firm, Boreas Architecture & Civic Design, which focuses on the conservation, preservation and rehabilitation of historic buildings, was a perfect fit with the society.
Last week, Babuk conducted a historic conditions assessment survey of the roundhouse, as the society prepares to submit its application to the Alberta Historic Resource Foundation.
The society hopes the foundation will match funding to begin the conservation project. An application has already been submitted to Alberta Culture to designate the roundhouse as a provincial heritage site.
To support the restoration of the roundhouse, visit the Hanna Roundhouse Society on Facebook, become a member, or donate to the society.