One of the world's great collections of World War I artifacts has an updated venue in Kansas City.
Kansas, MO World War I has been pulled into the 21st century by a just-opened museum here that aims to deliver a highly tactile, thought- provoking experience to visitors. The National World War I Museum, created by one of the world's premier museum-exhibit designers, occupies space directly below the recently restored and expanded Liberty Memorial. Eleven years in the making, the museum vividly tells the story of the four-year global catastrophe that reshaped the world.
Visitors expecting a dusty-helmet displays are in for a surprise. Using the latest in museology - state-of-the-art exhibit design supported by scholarship, the latest in audio, video, and computer technology, plus a vast collection of World War I artifacts and a large measure of showmanship - the museum offers visitors the sights and sounds of the first "modern" war.
Designed by the New York-based firm of Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the 30,000-square-foot museum's doughnut-shaped exhibition space is organized in a series of concentric circles around the underground portion of the memorial's 217-foot tower. Visitors enter the exhibits from the lobby by crossing a glass bridge over a "field" of 9,000 silk poppies, representing the 9 million combatants who died. A 10-minute orientation video reviews the events that led up to the war.
The first half of the museum covers the period from the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 to early 1917, just prior to when the United States entered the war. The second half focuses on US participation. The exhibits are arranged chronologically, but the museum is laid out so that visitors don't have to follow a single path. They can package their own experience.
Read entire article at Christian Science Monitor
Visitors expecting a dusty-helmet displays are in for a surprise. Using the latest in museology - state-of-the-art exhibit design supported by scholarship, the latest in audio, video, and computer technology, plus a vast collection of World War I artifacts and a large measure of showmanship - the museum offers visitors the sights and sounds of the first "modern" war.
Designed by the New York-based firm of Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the 30,000-square-foot museum's doughnut-shaped exhibition space is organized in a series of concentric circles around the underground portion of the memorial's 217-foot tower. Visitors enter the exhibits from the lobby by crossing a glass bridge over a "field" of 9,000 silk poppies, representing the 9 million combatants who died. A 10-minute orientation video reviews the events that led up to the war.
The first half of the museum covers the period from the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 to early 1917, just prior to when the United States entered the war. The second half focuses on US participation. The exhibits are arranged chronologically, but the museum is laid out so that visitors don't have to follow a single path. They can package their own experience.