TheMuseum (stylized THEMUSEUM, formerly the Waterloo Regional Children's Museum until 2010) is an art and technology museum in Kitchener, Ontario. It opened to the public in September 2003. As of 2026, the current president of the museum is Deborah MacLatchy.
History The building that houses TheMuseum was historically Goudie's Department Store, one of western Ontarios first, and eventually largest department stores at the time, owned by former city council member Arthur Russell Goudie since 1925. The department store would close in 1988.
Since the closing of its former storefront, the building would swap ownership multiple times before reopening as the Waterloo Regional Children's Museum in 2003 after eight years of planning and fundraising. The institution was rebranded as THEMUSEUM in 2010.
In May 2018, the BMO Bank of Montreal building adjacent to the museum offered to sell its building to TheMuseum allowing an expansion of approximatley 40,000 square feet, with the bank pledging to donate to offset renovation costs.
In 2024, museum CEO David Marskell reported that the museum was struggling with financial instability, with 75% of the museums operating costs being made through self-generated revenue. In May of the same year, the museum successfully appealed to the Kitchener City Council for a one-time grant of in emergency funding to avoid the museums closure. But was unsuccessful in a second bid for an additional .
Affiliations TheMuseum is affiliated with: CMA, CHIN, and Virtual Museum of Canada.
TheMuseum is host to TriCon, a semi-recurring multi-day anime, comic book, and sci-fi convention.
References
External links
THEMUSEUM