{"id":4532,"date":"2014-12-15T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T11:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fr.une-sen.org\/press\/?p=4532"},"modified":"2014-12-11T17:12:46","modified_gmt":"2014-12-11T22:12:46","slug":"closed-until-2017-canada-museum-of-science-and-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/?p=4532","title":{"rendered":"Closed until 2017 – Canada Museum of Science and Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"closed2017\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When we last reported on the Canada Science and Technology Museum<\/a>, it was slated to re-open in January 2015. That date was recently pushed to 2017 as evidence surfaced that the roof is in a much more dire condition.<\/p>\n

A recent article by Ottawa Citizen\u2019s Tom Spears<\/a> revealed that engineers feared the roof could collapse this winter under a little less than a foot of snow.<\/p>\n

\u201cCracks in the buckled ceiling revealed lumps of what appeared to be asbestos ready to fall into the lobby and exhibit areas. White powder settling inside the building looked like asbestos too.<\/i><\/p>\n

Plastic sheets draped over displays kept the water off, but dampness was everywhere.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

We knew it was bad, but not this bad.<\/p>\n

\u201cRetrofitting this kind of building to suit the environmental standards of museum conservation has provided salutary lessons in trying to make silk purses out of sow\u2019s ears,\u201d opined Robert Barclay<\/a>, columnist at the Ottawa Citizen. \u201cIt is enormously expensive and rarely successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

But retrofitting is what the Conservative government intends to do. An $80 million band-aid solution was unveiled late last month; a plan to fix a crumbling museum that has been housed in an old warehouse since 1967. It\u2019s a cheaper solution than building a new museum \u2013 plus, it has the added benefit of adding one more ribbon cutting in 2017 during Confederation\u2019s 150th<\/sup> anniversary.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s precisely the kind of short-sightedness that got this museum its substandard home in the first place. Eager for just-one-more-ribbon-cutting, the federal government got its hands on a struggling bakery\u2019s warehouse<\/a> in the middle of an industrial park \u2013 and boom: a national science museum just in time for the centennial celebration. From the Ottawa Sun\u2019s Ron Corbett<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It was cheap politics and the federal government kept on being cheap. In its first full year of operation, the budget of Canada’s newest museum was $333,000. In comparison, the National Gallery had a budget of $2.1 million that year.<\/i><\/p>\n

The numbers never improved. The museum had to wait 10 years before it had money to start a school education program. It is still waiting for money to house 90 per cent of its permanent collection.<\/i><\/p>\n

Fast-forward to May 2001, the Chr\u00e9tien government was already looking into other options for the museum due to its aging infrastructure. A year later, a Canadian firm was selected<\/a> to look into the cost of creating a new facility in a more central location. By 2006, Conservative cabinet minister Lawrence Cannon was getting himself in hot water<\/a> over the \u201cnew\u201d museum\u2019s location \u2013 he wanted it in his riding, of course.<\/p>\n

At the time, consultants were proposing a 1.2 million-square-foot museum that would do justice to our collective science and technology achievements. The increased space would have given a home to a great deal of the collection now housed in warehouses \u2013 the current building only allows for 2%<\/a> of the museum\u2019s collection to be displayed.<\/p>\n

But by summer 2012, the government was clear<\/a> that it wasn\u2019t interested in building a new museum.<\/p>\n

So instead of building a museum with an eye to the future \u2013 a museum that would instill pride in the hearts of all Canadians \u2013 the Conservatives are more interested in long-term pain for short-term gain.<\/p>\n

In the end, our members at the Science and Technology Museum will continue to deliver an enriching and stimulating experience to all the bright minds, young and old, that step foot in the building \u2013 no matter the building. But we hold hope that one day, the little museum that made a bakery its quarters, will have a home that truly lives up to its importance.<\/p>\n

Wanna dream a little? Check out <\/i>these breathtaking pics<\/i><\/a> from architects Provencher_Roy of what a NEW Canada Science and Technology museum could look like.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we last reported on the Canada Science and Technology Museum, it was slated to re-open in January 2015. That date was recently pushed to 2017 as evidence surfaced that the roof is in a much more dire condition. A recent article by Ottawa Citizen\u2019s Tom Spears revealed that engineers feared the roof could collapse … <\/p>\n

>> “Closed until 2017 – Canada Museum of Science and Technology”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4534,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532\/revisions\/4534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}