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. Plans to expand the museum have been ongoing, but progress has been slow due to political changes in the province’s government. In December 2018, the incoming government cancelled a $50 million contribution towards the original $100 million new build scheme slated for the St. John waterfront and promised by the Liberals. In 2019 the museum received proposals from the Hardman Group, which operates Market Square, where the museum is currently located, suggesting they could expand onto space which already backs onto the museum. Due to the delays caused by closing during the Covid-19 pandemic, work on the project ground to a halt. 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 fall 2022, the New Brunswick Museum permanently closed its exhibition centre in Saint John’s Market Square. Now, it has been determined that the revitalised 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 140,000 to 160,000 square feet museum building, incorporating a new design with the nearly century-old facility, which will be upgraded and preserved. Some of the building’s more recent additions will be removed, and the original structure will be expanded while maintaining the original facade. In 2023, the museum issued tenders for architectural engineering and project management services for the new museum construction project. Preliminary design plans are scheduled to be revealed by fall 2023. Overall, the project is expected to cost somewhere in the range of $150 million and aims to open to the public in the first quarter of 2026. (Updated 4 August 2023)