Canadian Air and Space Museum
 |
|
| Established | 1997 |
|---|---|
| Location | Forty-four, 40-foot freight containers in a parking lot on GTAA property in Toronto, Ontario. Not open to the public. |
| Coordinates | 43°44′51″N 79°28′31″W / 43.747382°N 79.47523°W |
| Type | Aviation museum |
| Website | www |
The Canadian Air and Space Museum (formerly the Toronto Aerospace Museum) was an aviation museum that was located in Toronto, Ontario, featuring artifacts, exhibits and stories illustrating a century of Canadian aviation heritage and achievements. The museum was located in a hangar that once housed the original de Havilland Canada aircraft manufacturing building, but in September 2011 the museum and all of the other tenants in the building were evicted by the landlord, the Crown Corporation, PDP (Downsview Park). The site was slated for redevelopment as a new sports centre but after closing the museum the development was placed on hold. The museum is developing a new location and its collections are currently not available for public viewing.
Located in what is now known as Downsview Park, the hangar was later appropriated by the Royal Canadian Air Force as a part of RCAF Station Downsview, and then later as CFB Toronto, which was closed in April 1996. On September 20, 2011, after the order to vacate the premises, the museum's collection was transferred to forty-four, 40-foot freight containers and stored in a parking lot on the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) property in Toronto.
When it was active the institution was largely run by volunteers and had the goal of educating visitors on the Canadian aerospace industry and technology. It is a registered Canadian non-profit organization.
The museum was housed in what was the original factory for the de Havilland Aircraft of Canada. It is the oldest surviving aircraft factory building in Canada. This building saw the creation of the de Havilland Beaver and Otter bush planes which helped to open the Canadian North, and was also the place where Alouette I, the first Canadian satellite was assembled.
Originally named the Toronto Aerospace Museum, the museum was re-launched under its new name, the Canadian Air and Space Museum, on February 20, 2009. To add space exploration to the museum's mandate the board contemplated a series of possible names. Since the national museum in Ottawa was called the "National Aviation Museum" and also had no space mandate, the name "Canadian Air and Space Museum" (CASM) was chosen. About one year after the successful rebranding and launch in Downsview the National Museum in Ottawa moved its space artifacts from the Science Museum to the National Aviation Museum and rebranded itself as the Canada Aviation and Space Museum which led to considerable confusion since Ottawa also adopted the acronym CASM.
...
Wikipedia