Kurt Vonnegut Museum Case Study
I was tasked with evaluating a themed experience I decided to check out the Kurt Vonnegut Museum to see what it had to offer. I took all the photos seen below.
The architecture of the building is interesting. It is an older building in Indianapolis and on the inside it has been modernized to fit their 3 floored museum. The purpose of this museum is to celebrate the life and work of the famous author Kurt Vonnegut. He is more special for Indianapolis because he is from here. The museum explores his life and what his work means ranging in topics from anti-war to mental health. The first floor is where you can get admission and visit the gift shop. It also serves as the first exhibit area. There was some smooth jazz playing as well, only on the first floor. I feel it matched the mood of the lobby/first exhibit area.
This first exhibit area focuses heavily on the freedom of expression which was very important to Kurt. He had several books that were banned like Slaughter House Five. There is also a lot of other famous banned books that helped inspire Kurt or those authors were inspired by Kurt. All of the pieces of the exhibit were nice over all but the flow of it was quite awkward. I felt lost in just about every part of the museum. There was no clear path to follow and for this type of museum I feel that is important considering it is focusing on the life of this author. The type writer is the only interactive thing at the museum, the guest can sit at a replica style desk of Kurt's and type like he did. They could definitely have more interactive activities here at the museum. I was on the tour and it didn't flow well, and if you were by yourself it would be very hard to navigate.
The second floor had more items that showed the guest more about Kurt when he was younger. Also were other things like self portraits, his type writer, and other things from his life. There is also a café type place their too, since Covid the have not been able to open it as they planned. Also on the second floor was a space dedicated for students to write and receive mentorship. Again the flow of what you were looking at was all over the place with no clear direction of what you were supposed to be focused on.
To get between the floors there is the options of an elevator or the stairs. For the stairs they were not consistent with theming them. The first set of stair had works of art inspired by Vonnegut's books. The next set of stairs was bare and forgotten about. It just seems like a missed opportunity to add more pieces for guests to enjoy.
The last exhibit which was on the third floor was themed for one of Kurt Vonnegut's most famous novels Slaughter House Five. In my opinion this was the best themed area in the museum. It had the most detail and it seems like the guest would spend more time here than any of the other part of the museum. There was a lot of info about the book and the real events from WWII the Kurt Vonnegut lived through that inspired this novel. It focused a lot on the bombing of Dresden, Germany.
The gift shop had normal gift shop items likes t-shirts, hats, and mugs. They also had a lot of Kurt Vonnegut books for sale as well as art from some of the artists featured through out the museum.
Overall the museum had a lot of great stuff for the guests to see. They did a good job of educating the guest on Kurt Vonnegut and what his values were. I think they need a better way of displaying there exhibits. The flow is a little confusing and is not consistent through out the whole museum. For instance they'll have a cramped room then it goes back out into a large open area. there was only music on the ground level and not through out the museum. The lighting was consistent through out the museum making it easy to see all the pieces. In my opinion if they could refine their exhibit flow and add some more interactive pieces this museum can go from good to great.
