Extensive Additions to Crucial Cautions for Adaptive Re-Use of Heritage Structures for Museum Purposes

Here presented is a detailed podcast that identifies many cautionary tales and makes strong recommendations about adaptive re-use of heritage buildings to house museums. Such high stakes projects are expensive and strict attention to myriad planning & implementation minutiae are absolutely essential to avoid difficulties in the performance of the renovated spaces for the desired museum functions.


The seemingly obvious good idea to move existing museums & their holdings into heritage buildings arises on a regular basis (e.g. CTV News Kitchener Staff 2023). In the past, your blogger has successfully completed such a project & had created a podcast outlining his experience & learnings derived from carrying out a $1.7 million project to move The Sam Waller Museum into the provincially designated historic site in The Pas, MB (Thistle 2017). See the related May 10, 2021 post on this blog (Thistle 2021).

The Sam Waller Museum in The Pas, Manitoba in the adaptively re-used provincial historic site
The Sam Waller Museum in The Pas, Manitoba located in the adaptively re-used Community Building and Court House provincially designated historic site, Canada Day parade 1 July 1994 (photo by the author).

In light of ongoing interest in the potential for adaptively re-using heritage buildings to house museums, I have reviewed my original podcast above (Thistle 2017) & identified many additional recommendations that I strongly believe remain crucial considerations for any museum organisations considering moving operations into a heritage structure. Many of my comments derive from recommendations I forwarded to the publishers aimed at improving any new edition of  the best book available for museum folks to read before undertaking any such a project, Building Museums: A Handbook for Small & Midsize Museums (Herskovitz et al. 2012). My 10 pages of recommendations to the publisher are available in Thistle (2013).

In order to provide access to my many additional detailed recommendations on best practices for museum adaptive re-use of heritage buildings, I have narrated a second 1¾ hour-long podcast (Thistle 2023a) accessed in the References Cited below. I also post a PDF document of this PowerPoint presentation that provides all of my many references with live links in Thistle (2023b).

If interested parties have not yet seen my original podcast “Adaptive Re-Use Project to House The Sam Waller Museum, 1984 – 1991” (Thistle 2017), your blogger recommends that you view it first so as to understand my references to it in my new podcast titled “More Crucial Cautions re Museum Adaptive Re-Use of Heritage Structures for Museum Purposes” (Thistle 2023a) made available in this post.

Your blogger Paul C. Thistle would be pleased to answer any further questions viewers may have about adaptive re-use of heritage buildings for museum purposes. Use the confidential Contact page accessed in the top ribbon of this page above. The Leave a Reply function remains publicly visible on this post.

References Cited:

CTV News Kitchener Staff. 2023. “City of Waterloo museum could be moving to Carnegie Library.” @CTVKitchener Published Monday, June 19, 2023 9:29 PM EDT at https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/city-of-waterloo-museum-could-be-moving-to-carnegie-library-1.6447798 (accessed 16 August 2023).

Herskovitz, Robert et al.2012. Building Museums: A Handbook for Small & Midsize Organizations. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press [PLEASE, don’t carry out  ANY museum building project without studying this important resolutely practical reference first! Several preview pages are available at https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Building_Museums/BDKsM6pCjOYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover ].

Thistle, Paul C. 2023a. “More Crucial Cautions re Museum Adaptive Re-Use of Heritage Structures for Museum Purposes NARRATION FINAL” at  https://miscellaneousmuseology.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/crucial-cautions-re-museum-adaptive-re-use-of-heritage-structures-for-museum-purposes-narration-final-1.pptx .

Thistle, Paul C. 2023b.  Crucial Cautions re Museum Adaptive Re-Use of Heritage Structures for Museum Purposes NARRATION for PDF [This PDF file includes live links to all the references in the PowerPoint presentation (Thistle 2023a)].

Thistle Paul C.  2021. “Adaptive Re-Use of a Heritage Building for Museum Purposes” Critical museology Miscellanea blog posted May 10, 2021 at https://miscellaneousmuseology.wordpress.com/2021/05/10/adaptive-re-use-of-a-heritage-building-for-museum-purposes/ (accessed 16 August 2023).

Thistle, Paul C. 2017. “Adaptive Re-Use Project to House The Sam Waller Museum, 1984 – 1991.” Critical Museology Miscellanea blog narrated PowerPoint presentation at  https://miscellaneousmuseology.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/adaptive-re-use-project-for-the-sam-waller-museum-narration-2.pptx [click on Enable Editing / Slide Show / From Beginning tabs & OK graphics card warning] (accessed 16 August 2023).

Thistle, Paul C. 2015. “Bordering on Folly: Adaptive Re-Use of a Heritage Structure to House The Sam Waller Museum (or Murphy’s Law Run Amok)” presented at the Ontario Museum Association Annual Conference Redefining Borders, Windsor, ON, 6 November [abstract & presenter biography] https://members.museumsontario.ca/programs-events/conference/Conference2015/Heritage-Buildings-Adaptive-Reuse (accessed 16 August 2023).

Thistle, Paul C. 2013. “Building Museums Recommendations for Second Edition” MS Word document forwarded to the Minnesota Historical Society Press found at https://miscellaneousmuseology.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/building-museums-recommendations-for-second-edition-by-thistle.pdf.

Thistle, Paul C. Little Northern Museum Scene newsletter excerpt outlining Canadian Conservation Institute workshop in Winnipeg, MB Heritage Objects in Heritage Buildings (accessed 16 August 2023).

Author: Paul C. Thistle

Paul C. Thistle is the former Curator and CAO of The Sam Waller Museum (1983-1995) and most recently Curator at the Langley Centennial Museum & National Exhibition Centre (2006-2009). He has 26+ years of mission and management work in museums & archives and continues to publish and consult in the field. He writes the Solving Task Saturation for Museum Workers, the Critical Museology Miscellanea, and Saskatchewan River Region Indian-European Trade Relations blogs as well as operate ➣Thistle to the Point Museum Consulting. In the field of ethnohistory, he is the author of the national, provincial, and academic award winning book Indian-European Trade Relations in the Lower Saskatchewan River Region to 1840. Manitoba Native Studies II and related journal articles such as "The Twatt Family, 1780-1840: Amerindian, Ethnic Category, or Ethnic Group Identity?" reprinted in the 2007 book The Western Metis: Profile of a People. He has teaching experience at the university, college, high school, museum programming, and professional development levels. He has many conference presentations to his credit, among them the 2022 American Association for State & Local History conference, Buffalo, NY, the 2014 Canadian Museums Association Annual Conference, Toronto, ON, & the 2012 American Association of Museums annual conference in Minneapolis, MN. His educational background includes an Interdisciplinary M.A. in history and anthropology and a B.Ed. in cross-cultural and museum education from the University of Manitoba, a B.A. in anthropology and history from the University of Waterloo, and a Museology Certificate from the University of Winnipeg.

2 thoughts on “Extensive Additions to Crucial Cautions for Adaptive Re-Use of Heritage Structures for Museum Purposes”

  1. Pingback: More Crucial Cautions for Adaptive Re Museum Adaptive Re-Use of Heritage Structures for Museum Purposes – Critical Museology Miscellanea
  2. Pingback: New ‘Podcast’ Page – Critical Museology Miscellanea

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.