Friday, March 26, 1999
Freedom Center's plans ambitious
'Story theaters' to present lessons of past
BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Visitors enter a welcome area and meet a guide called a conductor. The conductor leads them to a theater for a 15-minute movie to introduce the museum and its mission.
From there, visitors go to “story theaters” for hourlong presentations so intense that the next stop on the tour is a “decompression area,” where visitors can reflect quietly on what they've experienced.
Welcome to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, a museum of contemplation to open amid the fun and games on Cincinnati's new central riverfront.
While the freedom center is sometimes likened to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., planners want visitors to leave the Cincinnati museum with a sense of hope, not despair.
“We'd like to use the les sons of history to deal with current-day issues,” said John Fleming, the center's director and chief operating officer.
But even stressing the posi tive lessons of courage and racial reconciliation the museum wants to teach, the Freedom Center is a very different kind of development than the other things planned for both sides of the Ohio River.
No baseballs or bats. No helmets or Who-Dey. No mascots in goofy suits or fish in tanks.
While fans are swilling beer and eating brats at the new Reds ballpark or Bengals stadium, visitors at the museum will be looking for hope and strength in the lessons of the underground railroad.
A new report obtained by The Cincinnati Enquirer shows planners are so aware of those differences that they're working to design the museum so noise from surrounding buildings doesn't interfere with visitors' experiences.
The report describes the center as “an ambitious institution for which there is no clear precedent. The Freedom Center is a memorial to the courage of preceding generations and individuals. It is a museum of history recording a complex chapter in our nation. It is an educational facility and an institute for scholarly research. It is a pilgrimage site devoted to healing and reconciliation, and it is a center for the Cincinnati community.”
Still, while the freedom center will be solemn and reflective, planners also want to make it open and inviting, Mr. Fleming said.
“When it's closed in the evenings, we want it to be open for meetings, wedding or concerts,” Mr. Fleming said. “When it's not a museum, we want it to be a community setting.”
Similarly, the team of architects designing the museum want the building “to tell the seriousness of the subject matter” while at the same time showing the same kind of life and activity that will be reflected in the rest of the riverfront development, said Tad Lupton, a project architect with Blackburn Architects of Indianapolis.
“How do you represent in a building what freedom means?” he said. “How do you have a building tell what it's about and make it very intriguing?”
The center's architects don't yet know exactly what the facility will look like, but the new report offers a better idea of what a visit to the museum will be like.
Planners want the two story theaters to be a “signature” of the museum. The theaters will have actors who involve the audience in the stories through singing, discussion and even physical interaction.
“It's going to be real personal. People will feel like they were there,” Mr. Fleming said. “It's really to involve the people so they will get a sense of the drama that was going on.”
One story theater will be developed around the story of an individual's journey along the secret network of churches, homes and barns that made up the underground railroad.
The other hasn't yet been assigned a specific story to tell.
The “decompression area,” where visitors go after their experiences in the story theaters, likely will look out onto the riverfront. There, outdoor exhibits and gardens will help tell the story of the underground railroad.
Afterward, the conductor will lead visitors back to the welcome area, which will connect with the center's permanent exhibits, including those displaying slavery artifacts, and the museum's changing educational exhibits, too.
The center also will include a production studio with satellite links that will allow visitors to have discussions with people around the world, Mr. Fleming said.
“We can have meetings with people in South Africa, Japan and Europe about all issues relating to freedom and human rights,” he said.
The studio also will be open to community groups to produce programs or have forums with people around the world, he said.
Above all, planners want the center to become a “beacon” for the community, a place where the lessons of the past inspire people for the future.
OPENING IN 2003
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is scheduled to open in spring 2003.
It will be on Cincinnati's riverfront between Vine and Walnut streets, south of the new Second Street being built as part of the Fort Washington Way overhaul.
The building will be nearly 150,000 square feet and will be as high as four or five stories in some places.
The center has raised $25 million of its $80 million goal.
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