Opening Spring 2025: “Encounters”

12/03/2024
Collage of four vintage sepia or black-and-white photographs. Image 1: Rows of white women sitting at tables in a factory with bullets and other munitions piled between them. Image 2: A group of Black U.S. soldiers posed for a portrait in uniform. Image 3: portrait photograph of a gaunt-looking white man with dark hair resting his face on his hand. Image 4: Several Indian horse riders wearing turbans and carrying lances.

A new area to the Museum and Memorial's Main Gallery is now under construction.

“Encounters” is located in the West Gallery, adjacent to the Epilogue. This new section gives visitors the opportunity to “meet” 16 individuals who lived in the World War I time period and experienced the war in different ways.

“Encounters” is part of a multi-year upgrade plan to the Main Gallery and other spaces. These changes will not only see upgrades in technology to tell new and interesting narratives from WWI, they will create a richer and more immersive visitor experience. Renovations will continue through 2025.

The Museum and Memorial began collecting in 1920 shortly after the Armistice on Nov. 11, 1918. Today, it is the most comprehensive collection of WWI artifacts in the world and continues to grow as objects representing nations from across the globe are added almost weekly. These upgrades are the most expansive changes to the Main Gallery since opening in 2006.

The Museum and Memorial will remain open during all phases of construction and anticipate that the guest impact will be minimal.

 

 

“Encounters”

Opening Spring 2025

 

Through cutting-edge visual storytelling, visitors will encounter 16 individuals and their intimate first-person accounts crafted from diaries, letters and photos, including:

  • Allied and Central Power combat soldiers living through the hell of the Western Front and patrolling the seas in submarines.
  • British colonial Indian soldiers contemplating their own deaths and rebelling against the futility of war.
  • Women working in munitions factories to support the war effort.
  • Dissenters arrested and tried for protesting involvement in the war.
CG rendering of a multimedia presentation featuring a young white man wearing a leather aviator jacket in front of an atmospheric green background

Various CG renderings of WWI-era men and women against dark, moody backdrops

 

The media displays will feature 1.25 mm LED technology from Nanolumens and is the first installation of its kind in a museum in the U.S.

The exhibit is designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates (New York City) with media design and production by Dot Crew (United Kingdom). RAA is the Museum’s original design firm from 2004, and Dot Crew has created media experiences for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum, Norwegian Petroleum Museum, and projects for all the UK major broadcasters.

 

 

Thank you for your patience and excitement as these improvements are made – the upgrades are a vital piece in ensuring that stories of the Great War and its enduring impact will be shared for generations to come.

 

Previous renovation phases:

Lower Level – Open Storage and Bergman Family Gallery

Main Gallery – Prologue, Interactive Tables, America Mobilizes, Animals of WWI

Main Gallery – Epilogue, Into the Trenches

Main Gallery – Tank, Battlescape, Casualties