Manitoba Museum unveils multi-million dollar expansion

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This article was published 23/03/2017 (2871 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Museum took the first step Thursday to a historic new future.

It reopened a bigger and brighter Alloway Hall with a gala that included Metis musicians, gourmet Manitoban flavours and an exhibition of portraits and historic provincial artifacts.

The hall’s $5.3 million expansion, which doubles the building’s size, improves the room’s lighting and acoustics and opens the doors to larger touring exhibits. It is the first stage of a planned $160-million vision, says Heather Laser, the museum’s director of philanthropy.

The hall’s first exhibition will be World’s Giant Dinosaurs, which opens May 19. The hall will also be available for private rentals, providing a new revenue source for the museum, Laser says.

Funds for the Alloway Hall expansion came from the province, the Winnipeg Foundation and the federal department of heritage.

Next up for the museum is a $19-million renovation planned for later this year that will update and add to 42 per cent of the museum’s galleries, including its flagship Nonsuch gallery. That space will close over the winter while the replica of a 17th-century ship sails into drydock for new rigging.

Laser said the museum’s Winnipeg gallery, which commemorates the city’s cultural landscape during the 1920s, will also be updated and expanded, including added street sounds and dialogue.