'In Flanders Field Museum' Ypres, Belgium

[Wargamorium]

I have just come back from the newly refurbished 'In Flanders Field' Museum in Ypres and it is truly excellent.

We spent about two hours browsing all of the many exhibits on display. Everything was in four languages and well laid out. It is far better now than the old layout which had very little substance in it. The new graphics and films are really good and especially the 'then and now' pictures.

The entry fee was €9 EUR and felt I got very good value for my money. This included entry into an extra exhibition afterwards.

The new cafeteria and souvenir shop are also excellent!

Highly recommended during your next trip to Ypres.

[CaptainBigglesmay]

Certainly very good, went last year and the Passendale film with the medical staff was excellent. Can't help but feel the old one was better however, have the guide book for it in front of me and can't help but remember how powerful the gas room alone was.
Get that it needed to modernise but still think the old one was more powerful.

[zizi666]

Certainly very good, went last year and the Passendale film with the medical staff was excellent. Can't help but feel the old one was better however, have the guide book for it in front of me and can't help but remember how powerful the gas room alone was.
Get that it needed to modernise but still think the old one was more powerful.

+1

I've been to the Lakenhalle twice since it's been pimped and I don't really like it. (several friends that been there agree )
If you're in the region, check out Memorial Museum Passchendale (Zonnebeke) or the Hooge Crater Museum (Ypres)

[Geudens]

I've been to the Lakenhalle twice since it's been pimped and I don't really like it. (several friends that been there agree )
If you're in the region, check out Memorial Museum Passchendale (Zonnebeke) or the Hooge Crater Museum (Ypres)

I couldn't agree more.  I think it would have been much better to "upgrade" the old museum with multimedia incorporated in the displays as they were.  A few could be altered though.  Every time you entered the great hall you were at least impressed, but now not so.  It worries me to no end how all new presentations in musea must suddenly look like themepark items.  The most important WWI thing over the last few months in Belgium has been a WWI musical by the amusementpark group "Studi 100".  Sad.

[Wargamorium]

Not sure I agree about the In Flanders Field Museum.  I visited the old museum twice and was extremely disappointed.  Went this time with a low expectation as modernising museums usually means removing half the exhibits and replacing them with videos about the social side rather than the battles they were set up to commemorate.  Whereas there is plenty of this in the new museum I thought there was plenty of military too and some of the maps were really very good.  It has to be said that most of the visitors were families rather then military history buffs and I suppose the exhibitions has to cater for all.  It was never an old style museum as I recall.

I still prefer the older museums especially those full of clutter such as the Hooge Crater Museum.  The Army Museum in Brussels used to be like that years ago and it was a place of endless fascination.  I have not yet been to see the update for 2014.

I'm afraid that multimedia theme parks are the future as they have to attract the crowds. I believe this is what is under construction on the old Waterloo Battlefield which is very sad but at least the field will be preserved.

[CaptainBigglesmay]

The Zonnebeke museum is now greatly improved, how they manged to get that gun in the underground bit I'll never know, even the curator was amused by the whole thing. The trenches outside the museum are really good as well, I went about two after the opening and they had re-enactors there which made for a great impression and references for painting and modeling, well worth a visit.

 







Its kept the old rooms as they were for the most part, just the extension of the trench line.

Still think the old IFF Museum was better, that's due to when I visited I was in my teens and the impact of the rooms was greater on me, the horse rising up, eyes totally white for example, the 6th column in the gas exhibit with no mask, Its these displays that I think are missing, there's little 'shock', but I think that's the wrong word, in the new museum now, or if there was, it's not as powerful. Things like the last room in the old one, very simply done, but powerful in their words. the new one just feels a bit less than that. Perhaps for a young person the new museum achieves the same effect it did on me, I would hope so.

[grant]

That's one well-fed Hun. No wonder his mates look so glum - he's obviously been taking their bread and sausage rations!

[Metternich]

Thanks for posting this.