The Seagram Museum was a museum in

Waterloo Waterloo most commonly refers to: * Battle of Waterloo, 1815 battle where Napoleon's French army was defeated by Anglo-allied and Prussian forces * Waterloo, Belgium Waterloo may also refer to: Other places Australia * Waterloo, New South Wale ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, preserving the heritage of the once venerable Canadian distillery

Seagram The Seagram Company Ltd. (which trade name, traded as Seagram's) was a Canadian multinational beverage and during the last few years of its existence, entertainment Conglomerate (company), conglomerate formerly headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. ...

. Located at 57 Erb Street West, the museum operated from May 1984 to March 1997. Designed by architect

Barton Myers Barton Myers (born November 6, 1934) is an American architect and president of Barton Myers Associates Inc. in Santa Barbara, California. With a career spanning more than 40 years, Myers is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and wa ...

, it was built at a cost of $4.75 million and its entrance was a renovated late-19th century rack warehouse from the Seagram plant. Plans for the museum were announced in 1981. Peter Swann, a former director of the

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

, was hired as the first director and oversaw the creation of the Seagram Museum. It had a variety of exhibits illustrating everyday life in the liquor distillery in the late 19th and early 20th century. The company closed its Waterloo plant in 1992, and the museum continued to operate for another five years. It narrowly escaped a fire in 1993 that destroyed the building next to it. The City of Waterloo purchased the Seagram property for $4 million in the fall of 1997. The museum donated its archives to the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

. Two former barrelhouses on the site were converted into condominia while the museum became an office building, leased to software company

Waterloo Maple Waterloo Maple Inc. is a Canadian software company, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario. It operates under the trade name Maplesoft. It is best known as the manufacturer of the Maple computer algebra system, and MapleSim physical modeling and s ...

. The company moved into the renovated building in June 1998. In July 2002, the city sold the building to the

Centre for International Governance Innovation The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI, pronounced "see-jee") is an independent, non-partisan think tank on global governance. CIGI supports research, forms networks, advances policy debate and generates ideas for multilateral g ...

(CIGI) for $2.5 million. In September 2003, Waterloo Maple left the building and CIGI moved in. In 2010 it also housed Project Ploughshares. E-commerce company

Shopify Shopify Inc., stylized as ''shopify'', headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, operates an e-commerce platform for retail point-of-sale systems that offers payments, marketing, shipping, inventory management, transaction management, and customer eng ...

moved into the building in 2016. Some of the museum's collection was transferred to the City of Waterloo and is on display at the City of Waterloo Museum, which opened in 2009.

Affiliations

The Museum was affiliated with: CMA,

CHIN The chin is the forward pointed part of the anterior mandible (List_of_human_anatomical_regions#Regions, mental region) below the lower lip. A fully developed human skull has a chin of between 0.7 cm and 1.1 cm. Evolution The presence of a we ...

, and

Virtual Museum of Canada Digital Museums Canada (DMC; , ''MNC'') is a funding program in Canada "dedicated to online projects by the museum and heritage community," helping organizations to build digital capacity. Administered by the Canadian Museum of History (CMH) wi ...

References

External links

Centre for International Governance Innovation

Canada's Technology Triangle

Project Ploughshares

Seagram Museum collection
at

Hagley Museum and Library The Hagley Museum and Library is a nonprofit educational institution in unincorporated New Castle County, Delaware, near Wilmington. Covering more than along the banks of the Brandywine Creek, the museum and grounds include the first du Po ...

Seagram Museum Archives collection (R8574)
at

Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; ) is the federal institution tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is the 16th largest library in the world. T ...

. The collection consists of films originally held by the Segram Museum Archives. {{Waterloo, Ontario Museums established in 1984 Organizations disestablished in 1997 Postmodern architecture in Canada Museums in Waterloo, Ontario Defunct museums in Canada Industry museums in Canada Barton Myers buildings 1984 establishments in Ontario 1997 disestablishments in Ontario Seagram Former education in Ontario