Toronto City Tours: Specialty Museums

Toronto city tours offered by Global Alliance allow our clients to experience Canada’s largest metropolis in comfort from the seat of one of our luxurious vehicles with an experience chauffeur as a guide, with the further option to be dropped off to explore Toronto’s many attractions on their own. Today, some information about three of Toronto’s widely-recognized specialty museums.

Design Exchange

Just south of the intersection of Bay Street and King Street West in the heart of Toronto’s Financial District, the Design Exchange is the city’s museum of design. Often abbreviated as the DX, the cultural design centre is partially contained in a heritage building that included the trading floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange until 1984. The old trading floor has been preserved, including the Art Deco stained-glass windows depicting abstract scenes of commerce and industry; it hosts events and is customarily open during the Doors Open Toronto event in the early summer. The Design Exchange itself, lavishly redesigned in the early 1990s and opened in 1994, has a growing collection and archives relating to design and architecture in Toronto and around the world. It also hosts temporary exhibitions exploring design’s role in society, culture, politics, industry, and the economy.

Bata Shoe Museum

A mecca for lovers of footwear, the Bata Shoe Museum is situated on the corner of Bloor Street West and St. George Street, just west of the Yorkville neighbourhood and the University of Toronto. The museum’s holdings are based on the personal collection of Sonja Bata, whose husband Thomas J. Bata founded the international shoe manufacturer and retailer that bears his name. Long based in Toronto, the Batas donated their collection of historic and aesthetically notable footwear to the museum, which opened in Raymond Moriyama’s custom-designed deconstructivist building in 1995. Admission prices are reasonable compared to many of the city’s other major cultural attractions, and the museum has pay-what-you-can hours on Thursday evenings.

Textile Museum of Canada

Just north of Dundas Street West on Centre Street is the first Canadian museum dedicated solely to the collection and exhibition of textiles. The Textile Museum of Canada, founded in 1975, includes in its permanent collection over 12, 000 textiles covering over two millenia of fabric history. Clothes and garments, carpets and rugs, ceremonial cloths, quilts and blankets, the Textile Museum of Canada covers all of these textiles and more.

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