New Brunswick Museum

The New Brunswick Museum in Saint John is Canada’s oldest museum. Although it was incorporated as the Provincial Museum in 1929, its lineage can be traced back to 1842 and the work of Dr Abraham Gesner, a Canadian physician and geologist who invented kerosene.  After previously stalled attempts at expansion, in July 2022, it was announced that $8 million had been secured to undertake a new phase of planning for the museum’s revitalisation project. In the fall of 2022, the New Brunswick Museum permanently closed its exhibition centre in Saint John’s Market Square, and it was announced that the New Brunswick Museum will be located in its original home on Douglas Avenue in Saint John, housing the essential public-facing components of the museum, including exhibitions, research, and collections management. In April 2023, Diamond Schmitt, with Associate Architect EXP, was selected to design the new 134,000-square-foot museum building, incorporating a new design with the nearly century-old facility, which will be upgraded and preserved. Preliminary designs, released in March 2024, reveal minimal, modular volumes which contrast with the 1934 building’s decorative facade. The design integrates the east wing of the museum’s existing Collections and Research Centre on Douglas Avenue while significantly expanding the museum’s footprint with five new wings to the north. Entering street level, visitors will arrive at a multi-story, public ‘great’ room flanked by a boutique, cafe, ticketing area, and a new public “Introduction to New Brunswick” gallery. The second floor will feature 30,000 square feet of exhibition space spanning the length of the building and include six permanent galleries and a temporary gallery space that overlooks the ‘great’ room. The historic wing will house a library, reading room, 115-seat auditorium, and staff offices. Below ground, expanded areas will accommodate collection storage, conservation, and research. While a new rooftop terrace will offer panoramic views. Current construction plans have sustainability at their core, Diamond Schmitt is pursuing zero-carbon certification and will implement measures to decarbonize the building. In 2023, the museum issued tenders for architectural engineering and project management services for the new museum construction project. EllisDon has been appointed as construction manager, supporting the delivery alongside an extensive team of consultants and contractors, detailed below. Construction on the project began in August 2024. Overall, the project is expected to cost approximately $130 million and aims to open to the public by the third quarter of 2026. (Updated 9 September 2024)