Manitoba 150 - Winnipeg 150

Science Museum of London, England

I just finished reading One Man Committee's idea of a city museum for Winnipeg's 150th birthday in 2024. I fully support the idea.

I'm glad he likes the idea I had for the Manitoba to have a dedicated science museum. I have been advocating it for a bit and I did notice in the last months that the Free Press mentioned it in passing as well.

The Manitoba Museum presently has the science gallery. I believe the province should have a full science museum rather than just the one gallery. The present science gallery's 6000 square feet was renovated in 2007 and is quite good but the merits of a full science museum cannot be denied. Just off the top of my head, there could be galleries on a variety of sciences and technologies that have been important to Manitoba historically.

I'd hate to lose the old science gallery but it certainly can be moved to a new building. The same cannot be said for the planetarium. If a new science museum is built with a connecting tunnel, the planetarium should be part its mandate. The 6000 square feet of the present science gallery could be used for other uses, not the least of which could be a full museum shop that replace the embarrassingly small shop in the lobby outside the Manitoba Museum.

The 4000 square foot Alloway Hall could be continued to be used for temporary exhibits of the Manitoba Museum.

As has been pointed out by the Free Press, the 22,000 square feet of MTS Exhibition Hall across from the MTS Centre is just the right size to attract big travelling science shows. However, it is temporary.

Any new science museum should have at least 20 to 25,000 feet of space to host these big touring events.

If Winnipeg is lucky, it might have a museum of the the same level that we see London or closer to home in Minneapolis.



Now, in terms of what we should see for a Winnipeg Museum, I open the hall to suggestions!