A visitor looks at a sculpture created from a plastinated human body during the Body Worlds anatomy exhibit in Cologne, Germany in 2009. (Hermann J Knippetz/Associated Press)A controversial exhibit of the dead is bringing new life to a long vacant building in downtown Winnipeg.

The former A&B Sound building at the corner of Portage Avenue and Donald Street, across the street from the MTS Centre, will be transformed into an exhibit hall for human cadavers.

BODIES . . . The Exhibition features real bodies, literally stripped down, enabling people to see everything that makes up the human form.

More than 200 actual specimens will be on display in nine galleries spread throughout the building, which True North Sports and Entertainment — the owners of the MTS Centre — has leased for one year.

Tickets go on sale Aug. 12 and it is expected that 200,000 people will take in the exhibit from September 17 to January 9.

Preserved in rubber

The cadavers that make up the exhibit are willed by donors and displayed in poses of recreation, such as throwing a baseball, playing chess, running, and diving.

The preserved bodies are displayed in various poses of recreation, exposing how the inside of the body works. (BODIES ... The Exhibition)The bodies have been meticulously dissected and preserved using liquid silicone rubber.

Polymer preservation provides a closer look at the skeletal, muscular, nervous, respiratory, digestive, urinary, reproductive, endocrine (hormone-producing glands) and circulatory systems by unveiling the mysteries of the human anatomy, according to the website for the Winnipeg exhibition.

The travelling exhibit, which has been viewed by more than 15 million people worldwide, is designed to educate people about the human body and the effects of health and lifestyle choices — both good and bad — and to increase interest in the science of anatomy.

After the bodies exhibit has moved on, True North CEO Jim Ludlow hopes to bring other travelling exhibits to the temporary exhibition hall.

More than $250,000 is being spent to renovate the building.

Once the lease is done, the building's owners, CentreVenture Development Corporation — the city's downtown development agency — plans to build new commerical and hotel space on the site, he said.

"The building will eventually be demolished to make way for a larger commercial development," Ludlow said.

"In the interim, we saw an opportunity to use the building, produce some revenue and produce some income, in this case for Centre Venture and the City of Winnipeg, in what was otherswise vacant space."

The purple and green exterior of the former A&B Sound building will be repainted and the inside renovated to become the MTS Centre Exhibit Hall. (Courtesy MTS Centre)