WWI Museum Reflection

BRAVE//VALOR//HONOR


First I have to recognize how much I appreciate the men and women of the military and the families. The World War One museum was very tasteful and one of the most beautiful memorials I have ever seen. The time spent to make the memorial classy and inviting to generations who will not know or have met people who were from that time, and the memorial does a great job of bringing the history of old to the attention of the young. In addition the design alone is very ahead of its time, the layout is so well done, and it has a very clean setup.


REFLECTION//DESIGN//INTERACTIVITY


It isn't a surprise, after already gushing about how i really appreciate the design of the War Memorial, I need to give reasoning to why though. First off when you enter the Memorial you walk across a glass bridge that has a field of Poppy flowers about 12 feet under the bridge, each flower represents 100,000 soldiers lost during WW1, the symbolism of the flowers is breath taking. After being amazed by the entrance you can grab a Map which illustrates the layout of the museum, which is laid out in timeline format that is very inviting and clear. First you are given the option to watch an introductory movie that explains the events leading up to the eventual start of WW1. The film is decent, has some major type issues, but it is very nice. After the video walking the timeline there are many cases that are basically "shadow boxes" that hold the artifacts of old. In addition there are multiple timelines that round in shape but are following the timeline. The major theme of all the layout is to emphasis the fact that WW1 was a trench war, so everything you see is making you feel as if you are basically in a trench, the reality of how close objects are to you, and belittling you is a theme present in the design. There is a replica Trench that is present upon the outside all that has random openings that show a sneak peak into how it really was in the trenches, it strengthens the idea of the Trench esthetics of the memorial. One interesting timeline I found was the death count and how it was shaped like a cone, but it was upside down so it started small from the floor and grew larger, it was very interesting, it had a sharp degree of incline and really made the audience feel small and really made the information of the graph hit home. The addition of the interactive tables and mirror rooms that played sound bites from home when the war was going on and from soldiers over in europe. The interactivity is very inviting for the younger audience. this was surprising to see at first, but just the fact that those tables of interactivity were there really opened up the memorial to a younger venue.