2014 Lincoln Heritage Museum Magazine Lincoln Daily News.com April 26, 2014 35
Museum’s Second Floor
Offers
New Interactive Design
When any new museum is unveiled, it carries with it
an expectation that that it will offer something dif-
ferent, innovative, and refreshing, that it will entice
visitors to see it once, then leave them wanting to visit
again and again. When the Lincoln Heritage Museum
opens on April 26, it promises visitors this experience.
In 2010, the staff of the Lincoln Heritage Museum
and a core group of consultants began the process of
brainstorming ideas to create a different approach for
a museum design. One key consultant has been Joan
Flinspach, who served as the chief executive officer
to the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Indiana be-
fore that museum closed in 2008. Flinspach oversaw
a museum redesign during her tenure in the 1990s at
Fort Wayne, and shared her expertise on the necessary
procedures and elements of museum redesign with
the Lincoln Heritage Museum staff. Lincoln College
searched for a design team who could bring a creative
design and then implement that design. In 2011, the
college settled on TSI (Taylor Studios Incorporated)
out of Rantoul. While it was convenient that the firm
was located in central Illinois, the College selected TSI
because of the company’s documented creative exper-
tise.
After studying other museums and surveying museum
goers, TSI proposed a design approach for the Muse-
um’s second floor that would offer visitors an approach
to the life of Lincoln different than ever seen before.
With this new concept in mind, the bulk of the $1.5
million cost allocated for the new museum project was
dedicated largely to the second floor design.
Through living history, audio-video, object reproduc-
tions, attractive graphics, and realistic 19th-century
rooms, visitors will have an experience unique in
historical museums. The design of the second floor
follows a “life review” concept which puts visitors in
the place of Abraham Lincoln and, using audio/video,
gives visitors the ability to “experience" what Abraham
Lincoln himself may have seen and heard throughout
his life. It allows visitors to walk in Lincoln’s shoes.
To achieve this, TSI incorporated new technology
merged with targeted lighting and realistic objects.
On the second floor, visitors begin the experience by
entering a room marked with a Ford’s Theatre placard.
Visitors watch a short video on the Lincoln assassina-
tion, which was filmed in 2013 specifically for the mu-
seum using real actors on a set location. After Booth
is seen shooting Lincoln (this is not a graphic reenact-
ment), a narrator explains that in the hours between
the shooting and Lincoln’s death the next morning,
Lincoln may have experienced a “life review,” in which
memories of a person’s life come back to them, often
quite vividly. Visitors are invited to go with Lincoln
on his life review, as he sees places and faces familiar
to him, hears words he spoke and that others spoke
about and to him, and relives the moments crucial in
his life.
TSI incorporated into the design a high-definition
digital binloop system to attain unique wall and floor
projections. Throughout the experience, visitors are
encouraged to touch objects to trigger the voices and
the images. There are multiple rooms with multiple
presentations within each room. Visitors interact
with over fifty audio and video programs triggered
by touch-points. The touch-points are controlled by
proximity sensors, and include objects such as a plow,
rose, quilt, and books. The ticking of a clock is audible,
reminding visitors of Lincoln’s—and their own—mor-
tality, and the imperative to make the most of one’s
life. Visitors are introduced to over 60 individuals who
were part of Lincoln’s upbringing, his political career,
and his personal life. A courtroom based on the real
Postville Courthouse in Lincoln and a reproduction of
President Lincoln’s White House office give visitors a
sense of being brought into Lincoln’s life. Throughout
the “life review,” the grayscale displays remind visitors
that they are seeing history through the memories of
someone nearing death.
In the Museum’s final passage upstairs, visitors enter a
room similar to the first one and view a second video.
This time, Lincoln’s limp body passes and his life is
over. Upon leaving this room, the character qualities
commonly associated with Lincoln—honesty, vision,
leadership, empathy, and perseverance—are exhibited,
imploring visitors young and old to consider how
they might learn from the life and legacy of Abraham
Lincoln.
Lincoln Heritage Museum
