Bata Shoe Museum
The Bata Shoe Museum (BSM) is a museum of footwear and calceology in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum's building is situated near the northwest of the University of Toronto's St. George campus, in downtown Toronto. The 3,665-square-metre (39,450 sq ft) museum building was designed by Moriyama & Teshima Architects, with Raymond Moriyama as the lead architect.
The museum building on Bloor Street in 2016 | |
Location of the museum in Toronto | |
| Established | 1979 |
|---|---|
| Location | 327 Bloor Street West Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Coordinates | 43°40′02″N 79°24′01″W |
| Type | Calceology |
| Visitors | 110,334 (2018) |
| Founder | Sonja Bata |
| Curator | Elizabeth Semmelhack |
| Architect | Moriyama & Teshima Architects |
| Public transit access |
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| Website | www |
The museum's collection of footwear originated from the personal collections of Sonja Bata, started in the mid-1940s. In 1979, Bata provided an endowment to create the Bata Shoe Museum Foundation, with the aim of having the collection professionally managed, and to establish a shoe museum to house, store, and exhibit the collection. The foundation exhibited the collection to the public for the first time in 1992, although it did not open a permanent facility for its museum until May 1995.
As of 2018, the museum's permanent collection includes over 13,000 shoes, and other footwear related items dating back 4,500 years; providing the museum with the largest collection of footwear in the world. Items in the museum's collection are either held in storage, or placed on display in its permanent exhibition. The museum also hosts and organizes a number of temporary and travelling exhibitions, and outreach programs.