November 2022 - Parks & Recreation - 43

Once past the threshold, visitors
progress through the interior in discrete,
carefully planned stages, with
spatial cues, lighting, didactic and
interactive displays and more, all
flowing together to produce a natural,
understandable narrative. As
in all of our interpretive projects,
the aim in Baltimore was as much
to convey the relevant facts about
the site as to express its essential
emotional import, turning the encounter
with history into a moving,
transformative experience.
Beyond the building envelope,
there are an array of strategies that
can make for an effective interpretive
center. Context is one. In the past,
buildings like these were often located
near the historical site but with
no organic relationship to it. Now,
as in the recent Niagara Falls State
Park Welcome Center, the focus is
on forging a vital connection to the
site, with views out to the Niagara
River Gorge and the roaring cataract
to allow the landscape to tell its own
story. The variety of different media,
ranging from artifacts to video to
digital interactives, also is crucial to
appeal to potential visitors of all ages
and backgrounds, and to present
them with as many options as possible
to engage with the subject matter.
The opportunity
to guide the
user experience isn't confined to
the center's interior. With intuitive
wayfinding routing visitors around
and through the site, we are able to
extend the experience and activate
the whole environment. Even amenities
like dining, rest areas and
the gift shop can be marshaled in
the service of stirring, provocative
space-making, along with many
things ordinary visitors might not
notice but that, nonetheless, reinforce
the key themes of the site.
Pikes Peak Summit Visitor Center
in Colorado, for instance, meets
the stringent ecological standards
of the Living Building Challenge,
thereby helping to preserve the very
natural environment it celebrates.
The opportunity to guide the user experience
isn't confined to an interpretive
center's interior.
Ensuring the curatorial message
hits home is key, and it is incumbent
upon us to make sure it's the
right message, or messages, that get
through. In the Harriet Tubman
Underground
Center in Maryland, there was a
particular imperative to hear Tubman's
voice alongside the voices
of millions like her desperate to escape
from slavery. The challenge of
inclusion - ensuring that everyone
is present and accounted for, most
of all those who were traditionally
left out of the historical conversation
- makes it all the more important
to create interpretive centers,
like the Tubman center, that
guarantee different points of view
and provide spaces for events and
programming to bring in outside
speakers who can broaden the center's
scope and invite further particPARK
S ANDRECRE AT ION . OR G | NOVEMBER 2 0 22 | Parks & Recreation
43
Railroad Visitor
PHOTO COURTESY OF GWWO ARCHITECTS
November 2022 - Parks & Recreation

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