Hundreds attend Canterbury Museum opening

More than 900 people visited Canterbury Museum yesterday.

On Monday 2 July, for the first time since its closure on 16 April, the Museum opened its doors to families of all ages eager to explore the Museum’s galleries and highly acclaimed exhibition Canterbury Quakes.

Museum Director Anthony Wright says the Museum’s reopening signals a major step towards the central city’s recovery.

“To have the Museum reopen to the public is not only great news for the city but it is a major boost for our local tourism industry,” he says. “We’ve opened just in time for the school holidays so it’s been great to welcome so many families back to the Museum. This is such an iconic part of our city and so important for our recovery. The feedback we’ve received so far has been really positive”

The Museum has reopened areas of the building that are well above the new building code. These are the Mountfort Gallery (decorative arts and costume) and Maori galleries, as well as the Early European Settlement display, the Victorian Museum room, the Christchurch Street and Canterbury Quakes exhibition. The remaining galleries, including Discovery and the Museum Cafe, will stay closed pending further engineering peer review assessments.

Mr Wright says the Museum aims to be fully open to the public by August 2012.