Project:	Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre
Location:	Southampton, Canada
Cost:	$8 000 000 (CAD)
Date:	Completed 2005
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The Bruce County Museum is located in Southampton, on a wooded hillside overlooking a small lake. The original museum, an imposing buff brick schoolhouse built in 1873, was expanded into a complex over 43,000 sq ft in size. This ambitious project incorporated the original museum building, several new exhibitions spaces and a modern archive facility. Fragile artifacts and historic records are protected by a state of-the-art interior environmental system.

The new construction includes materials available locally (buff brick, Eramosa stone) and several pavilions evocative of the agricultural and shipping themes central to the museum’s collection were added.

The plan focused on a natural stone wall that slices through the site from sidewalk to lakefront, which is at times three storeys high, at times at sitting height, and at times simply part of the floor. The dramatic entrance hall follows this wall, introducing the visitor to the features of the site and the museum. This wall echoes the escarpment, a crucial geographic landmark of the area.

The existing schoolhouse was integrated into the new museum complex not by imitating historic details, but by introducing into the new work contemporary details sympathetic in form, mass, scale and material to the old building. Just as the 1873 building represented the best in architecture when it was constructed, the new museum reflects the best of design for today.