Flashback Friday: Look Inside September 11 Memorial & Museum

Electrosonic proudly installs projection, touch screens, media players and a complete AV system in New York City’s National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

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Because the project spanned several years, Benedict and the Electrosonic team had to stay on top of evolving technology and equipment advances as equipment was specified and installed.

Electrosonic created full-scale mock ups of about 70 percent of the exhibits at some point in time. They did much of their testing with Design & Production near Washington, D.C., Hadley Exhibits in Buffalo and their own facility in Burbank, Calif. This was the highest percentage of mockups for Electrosonic, says Benedict.

Inside the Installation

Electrosonic supplied a traditional museum system for the exhibition space where approximately 100 media experiences are available for visitors. These range from touchscreen interactives, small theaters and displays playing media to recording booths that enable visitors to record their own 9/11 stories.

Several exhibits required especially complex media systems. The first exhibition visitors see as they enter the galleries is We Remember, which features recollections of people around the world as Sept. 11, 2001, dawned. Six large, vertical screens are staggered down a 60-foot ramp; a portion of a world map is projected on each of the six screens, such that, at the top of the ramp it appears to be one cohesive map.

Digital Projection projectors with mirror mounts display the content, while 16 ceiling-mounted Atlas speakers recount, in multiple languages, where people were on that fateful day.

Rebirth is based on time-lapse documentary footage captured by filmmaker Jim Whitaker over the last 13 years on the site, from the clean-up of the pit to today’s rebuild. Seven Sharp projectors display the approximately 11-minute video on three walls that surround visitors. A full EAW sound system delivers the audio.

Since the Last Column, a 36-foot steel piece from the Twin Towers, is so tall, two 55-inch ELO touch screens run Local Projects’ interactive software, allowing visitors to scroll up and down its full length to see high-resolution details of the signatures and mementoes on its sides.

Eight interactive tables in the memorial exhibition enable visitors to scroll through the Wall of Faces or search for loved ones and access biographies and family photos. 3M supplied the touch screens, Dell the computers and Local Projects the software to operate this especially impactful exhibit.

Electrosonic also provided a full AV system for the multi-purpose pavilion auditorium, an approximately 150-seat theater used to show videos throughout the day and available for hosting events from standard presentations to video conferences.

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The museum has four education classrooms equipped by Electrosonic with digital whiteboards, document cameras, video conferencing systems plus other standard features.

Key equipment components in the museum include Sharp, Christie and Digital Projection projectors, Alcorn McBride audio playback, Vista Group SoundStik audio stations, Dataton WATCHOUT display and playback, Adtec signage players, Boland, Sharp and Samsung LCD displays, Extron extenders and Medialon system control.

Three control rooms service different areas of the museum with a total of 26 equipment racks in use. Signals are extended via a mix of fiber optic and twisted pair extenders.

“The fiber and copper backbone we used allows the museum to expand with higher-resolution video or new monitors and projectors as they become available,” notes Benedict. A lot of the equipment was purchased early, says Benedict, between the design phase in 2010 and 2011 and the installation between April 2013 and May 2014.

“There’s room to grow in the control room but the public space is pretty much filled,” says Benedict.

The Pavilion auditorium has its own control room with two racks. Each education classroom is self-contained.

Among the new skills Electrosonic employed was installing mirror-bound rigs in the ceiling. They allowed access to the ceiling and gave museum officials the effect they wanted with the layout of the exhibits, says Benedict.

Electrosonic is providing two on-site technicians to help keep the museum’s exhibits in good order. The technicians will eventually hand full control of all the systems and exhibits over to museum staff.

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