The colourful walls of the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum are unique. The pattern of colours is not random - it contains a computer encoded message. The 16 colours of the glass façade are translated into a hexadecimal code used in mathematics and computer programming. Various colour combinations represent the 26 letters in the English alphabet.

Click See Code to view a print out of the hexadecimal computer code used on the glass walls of the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum.

The words encoded on the colourful front wall of the museum are from 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."

The glass panels at the front door of the museum also have an encoded message. Here the code spells out the names of the seven municipalities that make up Waterloo Region: Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot, and Woolwich.

The use of a computer encoded message represents the high tech industries found in Waterloo Region, while the quilt-like nature of the glass wall represents our Mennonite heritage, and textile traditions of Waterloo Region.

Colour Wall

Museum at night