Antoine Predock

This One Changes the Future

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• published: 25 Jun 2010
• views: 2112

Video Transcript: On Screen Text: "Most museums explore the past. This one changes the future." Antoine Predock, architect: "Canada offers the perfect place for this, this kind of focus to occur. The building... its physicality comes from intention that has relationships with human rights as a subject. The building does have profound connections to its message. The roots of humanity that reach out, that clutch the earth, remind us that many cultures, many oppressed cultures have connections to the earth that are very deep. The Cloud. I think there's an optimism about how the light strikes this cloud. It could be seen as a kind of a beacon at night glowing. The tower of Hope is the culmination of the visitor`s experience, you would come through a rather interestingly circuitous route, via ramp ways, via gallery sequences, finally through the tower of hope where you can go up to a higher vantage point, look out across the prairie and process what they`ve been through in the building. I can imagine on an evening many visitors carrying votive candles, up the spiraling stairway, and into the Tower of Hope, illuminating the tower with candle light. I think the building is seriously purposeful and has a mission that is philosophical, cultural, humane, that the building itself lives up to. "Hey, there has been an experience put together here that is unique... that is life changing". On Screen text: "Most museums have galleries. This one offers a journey." Ralph Applebaum, Journey Designer: "This is the first major human rights museum in the world. It's the largest by far. We're not only explaining human rights from an individual point of view but we are explaining human rights from a national and international point of view. The technology has a broad range of capabilities. We`ll have a full Wifi zone in and around the museum, we`ll use a cue or barcodes on some of our graphics so that people can use their phones to load up additional information, we`ll use augmented reality when we`re standing in the tower and can hold up our GPS-equipped camera phones to find out what we`re looking at. Everyone who visits the museum has an opportunity to send back to their personal mail boxes, some of the exciting information or intriguing information that they discover as they walk through. In this museum, we observe the world through a human rights lense -- powerful encounters, media and stories. People move up and take action, talk to someone. You reach a point where all of sudden, you become the subject of the museum. For Canada to do this is one of the most courageous acts of museum making I've seen in my career. On Screen Text: "Winnipeg has a great human rights past. But an even greater human rights future." Mariette Mulaire, President and C.E.O. Agence nationale et internationale du Manitoba : « Come visit us in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It is in Winnipeg that worker's rights, women's rights, aboriginal rights, and rights of the French language have been fought for and won over for all of Canada. All of our Universities and International Rotary Clubs work together to encourage youth worldwide to come experience and learn about human rights here in Winnipeg. This will be a worldwide destination for human rights. Winnipeg is the new Geneva. This museum, this city and this province will change the world. " On Screen Text : "Most museums honour heros. This one creates them. " Craig Kielburger, Co-founder of Free the Children (Est. 1995) We're so excited that Winnipeg will be hosting the first ever global human rights museum. So that in the future when we come together as young human rights advocates, we'll be meeting in your city. A chance for student groups to come across Canada, across the United States and quite literally around the world to be learning about human rights.... A chance for young activists to have resources to come together and to help build on the amazing rich culture across this nation of youth helping to make the world a better place. Putting Winnipeg on the map not only as a great city but a global destination for human rights." On Screen Text: From Winnipeg, for the world.