By Amy Husser
Holding more than four billion years of history, the Canadian Museum of Nature was overdue for a facelift.
The museum, located on Metcalfe Street, closed its doors in 2004 to undergo a $94-million renovation and has recently reached the halfway point.
A castle-like structure built in 1912, the museum is home to age-old bones and specimens, but will use updated technologies and interactive media to engage visitors.
Last Friday, the museum opened a modernized west-wing and a brand new south-wing, allowing the public to see the interior of the museum for the first time in more than two years.
In spring of 2008, the surrounding exterior space will also be updated to include a community park and pedestrian promenade, in an effort to invite people in from Elgin and O’Connor streets. Designers say the site will eventually become a “green island” in the middle of Centretown.
“The museum fully wants to use and animate the entire site,” says Bruce Kuwabara, the museum’s design architect. “Clearly, we want to integrate with the surrounding community.”
Communications manager Elizabeth McCrea says the renovations will be good for the neighbourhood.
“This is going to provide a much larger green footprint in the community,” says McCrea.
On Nov. 1, the remaining sections of the building, the central section and east wing, will close for additional renovations to be completed by 2010. Starting next year, a glass tower, or “lantern” will be constructed over the main entrance which will be central to the design and a “dramatic part of the museum’s image.”
“Projects like this take a long time, but I think it will be worth it in the end,” says Barry Padolsky, the Ottawa-based architect heading the project.
Although many displays will be familiar to the museum’s former visitors, everything has been refurbished and brought up to date. The first and second floors house fossil and mammal exhibitions respectively, while the third floor introduces a new space for temporary exhibits. Currently on display is an exhibition about the life and work of Einstein. An entirely new bird collection will be unveiled on Dec. 26 of this year on the fourth floor.
Monty Reid, the museum’s exhibitions manager, says re-interpretation is much more important than new content.
“We’re responding to our audiences,” says Reid. “They need to see things relevant to the world they live in … Just about all the galleries and exhibits are based on the theme of environmental change over time.”
The architects say the museum has the ambition to gain an international status and will continue to integrate the old with the new.
“It’s got a New York feel but it’s still a little bit country,” says McCrea.
When construction is complete, the museum will be 175,000 sq. feet and home to more than 10 million specimens.