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After five years of operating in a temporary location at Colonel James Walker School, the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art was given a stately new home in 1922. Also housing the Alberta Normal School, construction began on January 18, 1921 at a prominent spot on North Hill, purposefully positioned here to maximize the building's visibility. Rechristened Heritage Hall in 1985, the building has become the centrepiece of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.
Serving the dual purpose of a training facility for teachers and a retraining centre for First World War veterans, who received specialized education for their reintegration into peacetime society, the building represented Alberta's progressive stance on institutionalized technical training. Before the Great Depression put a dent in enrolment, the school expanded its programs to offer an art school in 1929 and aeronautical engineering courses, the first in the country, five years later.
The federal government took over operations of the complex during the Second World War and used it to train airmen under the British Commonwealth Air Training Program. When the war was over and the building returned to its original function, enrolment exploded. The University of Alberta at Calgary, a precursor to the University of Calgary, had also taken space in the building.
Alberta provincial architect Richard Palin Blakey designed the Collegiate Gothic landmark, which he described as a "three-storey modern structure of brick and stone trimming having two wings, one for the Normal School and the other for technology, each to accommodate 200 students."
The red brick and sandstone structure was defined by its two entrance towers, with additional standout elements lying in its parapets, arches, and gargoyle carvings. Construction on Heritage Hall was finished in 1922 and its classrooms were put to use by the fall.
Many of the architectural additions since the inception of Heritage Hall have used the nearly century-old building as an aesthetic reference, including the Trades and Technology Complex, with its terra cotta exterior accents evoking the colouring of the historic school.
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