‘Paris of the Prairies’: A proposal from 1914 reveals what Calgary could have looked like

Long before Calgary was filled with massive glass towers, the city was once imagined as “Vienna on the Bow.”

Back in 1914, British town planner Thomas H. Mawson created a vision for Calgary. It featured grand boulevards, sweeping green spaces, and monumental public buildings.

Known as “Vienna on the Bow,” or “Paris of the Prairies,” the proposal, which can be found on Internet Archive, imagined Calgary growing into a major city of the future, with carefully planned neighbourhoods, connected parks, improved transportation routes, and a striking civic centre.

At the time, Calgary was still a growing city with a population of about 50,000. Mawson was asked to imagine what the city could become as it expanded toward a future population of one million.

“He responded with a plan that introduced a layout of wide boulevards, buildings in a cohesive neo-classical architectural style, green and blue spaces, and integrated civic facilities,” said Philip Vandermey, architect and founding partner of SPECTACLE Bureau for Architecture and Urbanism.

However, shortly after the plan was created, the First World War and a major real estate downturn changed Calgary’s future. The scale and cost of implementing the plan ultimately made it unrealistic at the time, and the vision was never fully realized.