Tucked away on St. Laurent Boulevard, south of the Queensway, the Science and Technology Museum has always been a little out of the way for most people. Tourists coming to the city have to venture out of the downtown core to visit its memorable exhibitions, such as the Crazy Kitchen or the Space Simulator.
The museum was closed earlier this month for routine maintenance, but on Sept. 11 maintenance staff found “unacceptable levels of mould in the air.” The building was evacuated and its future hangs in the balance.
The bigger problem was the museum was never supposed to remain at the St. Laurent location. In 1967, the museum was moved into a bakery warehouse which was always meant as a temporary home and not a makeshift museum.
It’s time for a new home. Continuously spending money on repairs and renovations for a facility that can’t even hold a fraction of the museum’s collection makes little sense.
In the current location there is only room for two per cent of the museum’s artifacts. The museum needs a new permanent location – and Centretown makes the most sense.
Centretown is already home to numerous Ottawa museums, such as the Canadian Museum of Nature, the Bytown Museum and the Canadian War Museum. It makes sense tourism-wise for the Science and Technology Museum to move closer to other museums in the city. Tourists looking for culture or those who want an interactive learning experience would be more likely to visit a museum in the technology and business core of Ottawa than the current facility in the city’s east end.
The National Capital Commission is already eyeing the empty lands near the Canadian War Museum on LeBreton Flats for a “landmark building of national significance.”
The majority of the empty land has been vacant for decades, since the federal government demolished homes over half a century ago as part of a redevelopment project.
The NCC needs to fill this land as a duty to the people of Ottawa and not continue to sit on it. If the Science and Technology Museum were to be relocated here, it would be a nice complementary fit for the museums. The Canadian War Museum and the Science and Technology Museum could look into selling flexible tickets or memberships that allow visitors access to both facilities to increase tourism.
The forgotten museum of Ottawa, the Science and Technology Museum, deserves a new home.
It has sat patiently for over 40 years as other museums have seen expansions and renovations costing hundreds of millions of dollars. It, meanwhile, still does not have a location to call a permanent home.
It is time for a move to Centretown, where the museum can be rightly appreciated amongst other technology and business partners.