Maxwell Bates, Sketch of St. Mary's Cathedral, Calgary, 1957 U of Calgary Library 439/89.1 MBF view in database

To give complete independence to his art, Maxwell Bates worked as an architect, a complementary profession. In the mid-to late '20s he trained with his father, Calgary architect William Stanley Bates (Grain Exchange Building 1911 and the Burns Building 1912) in Calgary. In 1934 Bates secured work with Harold Gibbons's firm in London, England and designed a reredos, which is viewable on this web site.

In Calgary in 1946, he initially worked in his father's firm, Hodges and (William Stanley) Bates, then with Hodges and (Maxwell) Bates. Bates is known for his ecclesiastical designs - his modernist neo-Gothic St. Mary's Cathedral, St. Anne's Church and St. Martin's Church - as well as secular designs for the Allied Arts Centre and private residences in Calgary.