The Bank of Canada Museum opens its doors
When the Bank of Canada initiated the complete refurbishment of its headquarters, they also took the opportunity to re-imagine their Currency Museum and the role it plays. Just over four years later, their extensive collection of coins, banknotes, and other objects have been incorporated into a much broader experience about our interconnected economy.
GSM’s scope of work began with interpretive planning and content development in close collaboration with the Bank’s experts and curatorial team, and continued into the development of interactive elements and an immersive design in order to ensure that the museum’s often complex messages could be understood and appreciated by visitors of all ages. As the museum’s content and design reached completion, GSM’s production team took over, delivering media, fabrication, and the installation of all elements in time for the museum’s opening.
With its new visitor experience, the Bank of Canada wanted to help demystify for its visitors the role of a central bank, explaining things like inflation and banknote security features and also exploring the many and sometimes invisible connections between the Bank and the average citizen. The new exhibition spaces feature highlights from the museum’s extensive collection of currency and other objects associated with financial systems from Canada and around the world.
But the museum also set itself the objective of becoming a world-class digital experience, and GSM Project was central in making this happen. Games and other digital interactives invite visitors to make their own banknotes, for instance, or manage inflation rates by flying the “Two Percent Rocket.”
Along with new galleries opening at the Canadian Museum of History, the Canadian Museum of Nature, and the Canada Science and Technology Museum, this was just one of four major projects GSM helped open in Ottawa in 2017.
On July 1, 2017, in coordination with Canada’s 150th anniversary celebrations, the Bank of Canada Museum opened the doors of its new museum, at the corner of Bank and Wellington streets, facing Parliament Hill.