Designs mark Titanic centenary
As the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic approaches on April 15, major design projects are opening in Belfast where the ship was built, in Liverpool where it docked and in Southampton where it sailed from.
Event Communications has worked on the design of an £11m permanent exhibition housed within the Titanic Belfast Museum, designed by Eric Kuhne & Associates.
The museum opened to the public on Saturday on a regenerated dockland site and comprises four floors which Event Communications’ James Alexander has described as telling the story of Titanic’s ‘industrial heritage and segueing into the Titanic story’.
The exhibition combines nine galleris and includes a ride, a 3D cave allowing visiotrs to walk through the ship, and HD footage of the wreck taken by explorer Robert Ballard who discovered the wreck in 1985.
Meanwhile Southampton City Council’s Sea City Museum, which opens on 10 April, features two Titanic exhibitions and a third about the city – all designed by Urban Salon.
One temporary exhibition, Titanic The Legend, sits within a new extension to Southampton City Council’s Civic Centre, designed by Wilkinson Eyre architects. This exhibition looks at the public’s fascination with the Titanic by exploring six films’ interpretation of the iceberg scene simultaneously, and also asks moral questions.
‘Touch screens pose ethical questions about raising the wreck,’ says Urban Salon director Alex Mowat. The data is collected and presented at the end of the exhibition, so visitors can see how their opinion ranks alongside others surveyed that day.
Gateway to The World and Southampton’s Titanic Story sit within the listed civic building and all of the exhibitions use interactives, audio-visual display and objects.
The Southampton’s Titanic Story exhibition tells the story from the crew’s perspective, as most of Titanic’s crew were Southampton residents. Of the total 1523 people who lost their lives in the tragedy, 549 – around a third – came from the city. This exhibition offers an interactive map room charting where the victims of the disaster lived.
‘It’s very poignant – there were some small streets and even households, where several people died,’ says Mowat. The gallery will also play the ‘first person recordings’ of survivors he adds.
Meanwhile in Liverpool a campaign designed by Black & Ginger is now rolling out ahead of The Sea Odyssey, a street event celebrating the centenary of the voyage, which takes place from 20-22 April.
The identity and graphics for posters have been inspired by the brand of White Star – the company which owned the Titanic.
Alex Frech, creative director of Black & Ginger, says ‘the graphics, language and type are poignant and of the period.’ The identity has been accompanied by the words ‘Giant spectacular.’
A campaign concept was constructed around a ‘giant girl’ who ‘takes over the city’ says Frech.
Very interesting wish they would have a museum like this in the states 🙁