Stephen Avenue: An Area of Business and Pleasure

Our Jane’s Walk of centre east covered the most popular spots on Stephen Avenue: the Core, Bankers Hall, the Palace Theatre, the Bay, etc. A common theme that we found during our walk was that centre east is both a place of business and pleasure. Centre east as an area is filled with banks and oil and gas companies but also places to shop, have a coffee and eat.

Since Stephen Avenue gives off such a professional, corporate culture, it’s nice to have public art lining the avenue to balance it out, such as the “Conversation” statues by William McElcheran and the featured photo of this post. The featured photo is a photo of the Galleria Tree Sculptures gifted to the City of Calgary by Trizec Hahn Office Properties and fabricated by Empire Iron Works in 2000. 

Although we have an appreciation for art in general, we especially appreciate functional art. Not only are the Galleria Trees pretty to look at, the design is meant to reduce wind gusts between Bankers Hall and the Home Oil Tower. Calgary does get windy sometimes, so we love that the sculpture serves more than one purpose.