Cultural heritage. You don’t see it until you see it
And it is. Until you prove that it is relevant, that it has something to tell us.
Best start by putting future heritage visitors into the right mode, for example by making heritage visible in educational materials for schools. It should contains basic knowledge: once we were at war, Holland has a coast, Germans were afraid and built bunkers. And then you show those bunkers.
The usual way to show stray concrete in the dunes is to add a plate with a number (Aggregate bunker type M183). That’s something like “Still life with pheasant, oil on canvas, 1665” on a museum sign. What do you expect people to do with that?
Get your audience in the right mood in 4 steps
Step 1: reveal the connection with a simple question
All those loose bunkers in the dunes have different roles. You can see those roles when you ask a simple question, such as “there’s an English warship coming, what needs to be done to be able to shoot at it? Then you’ll see binoculars (and a high point), fire control (and thus officers), loaders (crappy job), aiming (technology), ammunition storage (that thick bunker), and lots of concrete (yes, those English shoot back).
Step 2: “…and what else do you need?”
We shot at the ship. That will make you hungry. So close to the bunker complex is also a kitchen, a mess hall, men’s quarters. You have to supply those, that’s why there’s a road.
Step 3: “and what do you have to do for that?”
To pave that road, we pull all the clinkers from the streets of IJmuiden, leaving only sand. And when the soldiers’ food runs out, it is not the soldiers who have to go hungry, but the civilians. To defend the bunkers on the land side, we place cannons. And oh yes, we demolish houses to clear the line of fire, and lay barbed wire and minefields. Living in IJmuiden anno 1943.
Step 4: “and what does that have to do with me?”
Says one student, “I still think it’s stupid, such a lesson about old stuff. It’s nice weather outside, we’d rather go swimming!” Let an 80-year-old IJmuiden resident tell where they went swimming then. In the canal? You couldn’t, there were mines there. In the sea? You couldn’t, on the beach you would get shot. So, straight home from school, through those streets of sand. If your house was still there. With the personal story, you will get the class’ attention.
Now that the class has been warmed up with prior knowledge, the students are ready for a field trip. Because heritage still makes the most impression in real life.
Let’s go!
Projects by Explanation Design (my previous company)
atlantikwallindeklas.nl (interaction design by Ruben Daas, digital stuff by Studio Alloy, style by Manon Den Hartog)
stellingvanamsterdam.nl (interaction design Ruben Daas, digital stuff whizzweb.nl)
mediaspoor.nl (interaction design Ruben Daas, corporate identity Manon Den Hartog)
What to show your audience, in what order? That question must be resolved. Then, like in this digiboard lesson, you still have to figure out what the students should do next. In this case: drag the correct term into the box. For this conversion of knowledge into action, you need specialists, both to conceive it (interaction design, in this case by Ruben Daas) and to get it working technically on all those different devices in schools (done by Alloy, an excellent digital agency)
A look inside Fort Vijfhuizen: the officers and soldiers, where do they sleep, what are they wearing, what hangs over their beds? Clicking on this “school record” will take them to short assignments.
Digital educational materials should be easy to use, as well as suitable for short and long lessons at different levels. Whether it works, you have to find out in the field.
To reiterate the importance of interaction design, this sketch shows what you need to take a shot at a ship from near IJmuiden.
This is what the interaction designer makes of it: only after the crew has each been given their tools (a radio, a grenade, a scope) the gun can be fired. Interaction design by Ruben Daas.
Animation also works well. When the enemy comes we flood the place (left) and remove the structures from the line of fire (right). Each animation in this series follows the same pattern: ‘what do we do when the enemy comes?’ (From: Stellingtour, a game about the Defence Line of Amsterdam)
From the educational material for the Defence Line of Amsterdam: how much food should you bring into a Fort per week?
