With its scooped-out volumes and its embrace of a historical building and a main city thoroughfare, the National Music Centre is monumental on every scale. Nine glazed terracotta towers – inspired by grain elevators, organ pipes and Alberta’s phenomenal hoodoo rock formations – will house a museum, a performance venue, a recording studio and a broadcast facility. The architects, Allied Works Architecture of Portland, also restored the adjacent 1905 King Edward Hotel and incorporated it into the 14,865-square-metre scheme. Under construction and slated for a 2015 completion, the centre has already earned some rock ’n’ roll cred by buying the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, which is parked on site. ­alliedworks.com