PLACES: THE KEN SEILING WATERLOO REGION MUSEUM
As you pass the museum, you are struck by the brilliant colours of the glass panels that make up the “quilt wall.” It was the force of this colour that drew me in to explore the museum one bright spring day. I’ve always had an interest in the use of colour in modern architecture.
My early influences included modern architects such as Walter Gropius, and his sterile white boxes. I viewed colour in architecture as decoration or mere ornament, and I was deathly afraid of using it. My focus was on form and space. But I was gradually drawn to Le Corbusier and his practice of using colour as an instrument to orchestrate spatial effects. Now, I frequently use brilliant colours in my interior projects and, in more muted tones, on the exteriors of my buildings.
Before entering the museum, I was aware that the quilt wall, in all its complexity, is not merely a wall—an architectural element. It represents the Mennonite heritage of Waterloo Region. Once inside, I was astounded to learn that there is a computer-encoded message embedded in the organization of the glass panels, in hexadecimal language, translated into 16 colours and organized to display a speech made by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier in 1905:
We do not want, that any individuals should forget the land of their origin or their ancestors. Let them look to the past, but let them also look to the future; let them look to the land of their ancestors, but let them look also to the land of their children.
After absorbing the wall’s message, I was free to turn inward to the displays and organization of the museum.
The interior form of the museum has been structured as a crossroads, representing the intersection of the Huron Road and the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1827 the British Land Development Firm known as the Canada Company drove the Huron Road through the wilderness, to connect its two communities, Guelph (founded in 1827) and Goderich (surveyed in 1829). The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada was the major railroad in the Province of Canada (Ontario and Quebec, between 1840 and 1867), connecting Toronto to Montreal. In 1857 the Railway laid track for a spur line connecting Hespeler (now part of Cambridge) to Kitchener (then Berlin). In 1923 the Grand Trunk Railway was nationalized and became part of the Canadian National Railways. I was pleased to see that the historic significance of the site had been embedded in its form, while celebrating the area’s historic pioneering past and technology-based future. This is especially interesting to me, since some of the forebears started farming land a few dozen miles south of here in 1795.
The glass panels of the front door of the museum also contain a coded message, spelling out the names of the seven municipalities that make up Waterloo Region: Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot, and Woolwich. In addition, the panels show a Map of Waterloo County dating from 1881 and images relating to teachings and products from the Region.
Once I had learned how to decipher the coded walls and understood the historic underpinnings of the museum’s organizational structure, I was free to absorb the exhibits. The two-storey space contains every kind of local artifact imaginable, from shoes to displays of large of steam-powered equipment. The main gallery exhibit traces the 12,000-year history of the Region from Indigenous settlements, to the establishment of communities at the start of the 1800s, to the height of the manufacturing era during the 1900s, to the high-tech boom of today.
I was pleased to learn that large community groups from the Region and all over the province rent the space to hold special events, even including weddings.
The 47,000 sq.ft. (4365 m2) Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum was opened in 2010 Designed by Moriyama + Teshima Architectsin association with the Walter Fedy Partnership, it acts as the gateway to the Doon Heritage Village, which opened in 1957. If time allows, once you have digested the Museum’s exhibits, you can explore the Village’s 60 acre (24 ha.) living history of more than 22 historic buildings.