On July 16, the Imperial War Museum in London, which has been closed for six months while undergoing a £40 million revamp, has reopened in time for World War I’s centennial anniversary.
The museum, transformed by architects Fosters + Partners, has gone through some major changes, with an extra level added and a huge remodeling of the atrium. The atrium will now display 400 objects, 60 of which have never been seen before as reported by the Daily Mail.
This museum, with a special exhibit about WWI, attempts to create an experience that allows visitors to understand the climate that led to the Great War, the struggles people faced as the war went on, and how the Allies eventually ended up on top. Along relics from the past, such as a suicide bomb vest and uniforms from World War I, there are features that attempt to make past events more accessible to modern viewers. For example, the museum takes advantage of technology, making it so that audiences can experience the sound of shrapnel that numerous soldiers heard every day.
Museum historian Nigel Steel told The Guardian that, “We're trying to make the objects work harder to tell the stories, now we can no longer count on visitors having first-hand memories of this history. Obviously there are none who were adults in the first world war, and even for the second world war, visitors would be very elderly, in their 80s or 90s.”