Our Curatorial Centre is where we store and preserve artifact collections owned by the Region of Waterloo. The Curatorial Centre is also where most of our staff offices are located.
In October 1995, the Waterloo Region Curatorial Centre was completed at Doon Heritage Village, now the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum. The Curatorial Centre received awards of excellence from the Canadian Museums Association, the Ontario Museum Association, and the Archives Association of Ontario. The Curatorial Centre includes 32,000 square feet or 2973 square metres of space; approximately 20,000 square feet or 1858 square metres are used for the storage of artifacts. Artifact storage rooms include: an archives, large artifact storage for vehicles, industrial and agricultural machinery, furniture storage, and storage for small artifacts. Collections management areas include artifact registration, conservation labs, artifact holding room, receiving areas and an emergency supplies storage room.
The architects for the Curatorial Centre were Joe Somfay Architect Inc. from Waterloo working in partnership with Sears & Russell Architects Limited from Toronto. The general contractor was Melloul-Blamey from Waterloo. In 2009, a 3,500 square foot addition to the Curatorial Centre was built that includes an exhibit fabrication workshop and an exhibit design studio, to support exhibition programs in the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum.
The Curatorial Centre is a service building. It is located at the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum so as to be as unobtrusive as possible - not an easy task in the construction of a large warehouse. By strategically locating the building and careful attention to exterior building treatments, the structure is hidden from the nearby living history village and the museum building. The Curatorial Centre is constructed to resemble some Waterloo Region barns both in shape and colour, hence its gable-end structure, grey exterior walls and green roof. The Curatorial Centre uses traditional warehouse construction materials. The exterior wall of the Curatorial Centre is a sandwich of multiple layers of insulation and vapour barriers, between interior and exterior layers of corrugated steel.
The building meets modern standards for museum environments. There are three independent air handling systems - one for the offices, and two for artifact storage areas. The artifact storage areas can be maintained at 50 per cent relative humidity with fluctuations of no greater than 2 per cent daily. The environment is monitored and adjusted 24 hours a day through an automated building system. Although the Curatorial Centre does not include exhibition galleries, wide corridors and windows looking into storage and work areas allow the public to tour the building. The emergency supplies storage room offers our facilities and other museums, art galleries, archives, and libraries in Waterloo Region, access to preservation supplies in the event of a disaster such as a fire or flood.
The Waterloo Region Curatorial Centre address is 10 Huron Road, Kitchener, Ontario. The building is located behind Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum and can be accessed through Gate 1 (just off Homer Watson Boulevard). The Curatorial Centre is open during regular business hours, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.