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 St. George campus of the University of Toronto, in downtown Toronto. The museum building was designed by Moriyama & Teshima Architects, with Raymond Moriyama as the lead architect.
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.
, 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.
History
The museum's collection originated from the personal collections of Sonja Bata, which arose from her interest in the products produced by her husband's company, the Bata shoe company originated by Tomáš Baťa. Sonja began collecting shoes shortly after her marriage to Thomas J. Bata in 1946, and their subsequent move to Toronto. The Bata family moved to Toronto in the 1940s in order to facilitate the company's expansion into Toronto and the Americas. In 1965, the company's headquarters was formally relocated from Zlín to Toronto (the company's headquarters was later relocated to Lausanne in 2002).
By the late 1970s, the personal collection had grown to 1,500 pairs of shoes, overcrowding the company's storerooms. At the suggestion of a friend and anthropologist, Sonja Bata provided an endowment to establish the Bata Shoe Museum Foundation in 1979; an organization that would fund research into footwear and professionally manage the collection. In 2006, the slippers were valued at approximately C$160,000, whereas the gold anklet was valued at C$45,000, and the toe ring at C$11,000. The stolen items were recovered several weeks later by the museum. Prior to the museum occupying the site, a gas station was situated on the property. St. George station is the closest Toronto subway station from the building.
The three-storey Deconstructivist-styled rectangular building was designed by Moriyama & Teshima Architects, with Raymond Moriyama as the project's lead. Moriyama was inspired to shape the building like the boxes used to store and protect the Batas' footwear collection when he viewed them in 1978. The three-storey building's roof is tilted, designed to appear as a lid sitting slightly askew atop a shoe box. The museum's permanent exhibition is situated in the lower two levels in the building's east side, whereas specialized temporary exhibitions are situated in the galleries of the building's second and third levels. The exhibition galleries were designed as "neutral spaces," enabling the museum to host a variety of exhibitions. In order to accommodate the exhibits of delicate and fragile objects, the museum's galleries were all designed with strict environmental controls, with little natural light entering the galleries. The Virtual Museum of Canada has also hosted online exhibits created by the Museum.
Permanent exhibition
The museum's permanent exhibition, All About Shoes, provides a historical survey of footwear throughout history and includes interactive displays that highlight the social significance of shoes and their development from various cultures. Fashion Afoot is an exhibition component that examines the development of fashion shoes during the 20th century, and the emergence of footwear as a major fashion accessory. The following is a sample of temporary exhibitions held at the museum:
The collection was initially intended to serve as a "working collection" for the Bata family, in which shoe making techniques could be learned. Techniques and designs from shoes collected were used to mimic traditional styles found in local markets. However, the scope was later expanded to be a historical and anthropological collection, when Sonja Bata began to collect shoes from local populations where Bata factories were displacing local footwear, in an attempt to preserve and document shoes that were being replaced. The following is a part of the museum's philosophy in which it sees worn footwear as having significant cultural meaning.
Research and programs
The Bata Shoe Museum conducts and sponsors research into understanding the role of footwear in cultural and social life. The Bata Shoe Museum Foundation has funded field trips to collect and research footwear in Asia, Europe, and circumpolar regions and cultures where traditions are changing rapid. The foundation has also produced academic publications. The museum is affiliated with Canadian Museums Association, Canadian Heritage Information Network, North American Reciprocal Museums, Ontario Association of Art Galleries, and the Virtual Museum of Canada,
The museum organizes lectures, performances, and social evenings, often with an ethnocultural focus or community partner. Events often illuminate a personal connection or a cultural context in which footwear was created. An annual lecture series, The Founder's Lecture is held each November and is a public event featuring an internationally recognized leading thinker engaged with the convergence of culture and society. The museum also hosts shoemakers from around the world to demonstrate shoe-making techniques to the public, in an attempt to counteract the displacement of local shoe-making forms.
Outreach
In 2018, nearly 9,000 students visited the museum for school related excursions. In 2018, the museum saw 1,800 youths access its facilities through the Step Ahead program. The coat of arms uses the official colours of the institution, blue and gold, and features a triangular division placed along the position of the thongs found on most sandals.