Cohesive yet site-specific interpretation for memorial landscapes worldwide

As the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) approached its centennial year, they commissioned us to create a comprehensive interpretation plan to reimagine the visitor experience across their sites worldwide.

We delivered this work at a pivotal moment, at a time when the World Wars are fading from living memory yet their legacy remains more important than ever. Increasingly, ABMC sites are places to tell stories to new generations as well as resonant sites for the families of those commemorated. Our interpretive work reacts to this unfolding shift in focus.

Our work began at the grassroots, working with on-site staff, subject specialists and a wide community of stakeholders to understand the challenges and opportunities of interpretation at ABMC sites. From this, we shaped an interpretive approach founded on a considered appreciation of the emotional and commemorative significance of these places, and of the role of the memorial landscapes themselves as holders of memory.

Interpretation needed to be cohesive while responding to the needs of 26 cemeteries and 31 memorials across 17 countries with varying resources, teams and contexts. To ensure this, we created a flexible toolkit with a palette of core and supporting interpretive tools encompassing on-site and off-site, physical and digital offers. We also defined a wide-ranging set of recommendations on everything from increasing audience diversity to improving internal processes in order to better support the needs of ABMC staff.

ABMC set about implementing the recommendations of our interpretation plan immediately. One of the first actions was the creation of a ‘passport’ for visitors enabling them to record and reflect on their visits to ABMC sites. We were commissioned to design and produce the passports, which were inspired by the native flora and unique memorial artworks at each site.

In 2023, we were invited to create the first permanent ABMC visitor centre on US soil, at the Honolulu Memorial.

This site honors the achievements and sacrifices of American armed forces in the WWII Pacific Theater, Korean War and Vietnam War. Here, the Walls of the Missing honour almost 29,000 personnel whose ends are unknown or whose remains have not been recovered.

We developed exhibits for the new visitor centre, creating interpretation and design that reflects on what it means to go missing and to remember the missing. Individuals’ stories are the focus, told through personal objects, audio, graphics and film.

We worked with community representatives and next of kin to ensure the centre integrated with the significance and symbolism of the landscape that hosts the Honolulu Memorial.

We also delivered subtle but clear site-sensitive wayfinding, incorporating references to the landscape. This supports visitors to explore this powerful place with confidence and focus on its meaning.