Reference

Space of places - Digital exhibition with CMS

Web application
Client
Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Industry
Education & Research
Launch
2022
Initial situation & goal

Implementation of a content management system in the screen installation in the "Room of Places"

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

In May 2005, the "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe" was ceremoniously opened to the public in Berlin. Since then, it has gained an enormous reputation as a central place of remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of the Jews. The memorial is complemented by a "place of information", which the architect has created underground in the south-eastern corner of the field of stelae. Accessible via two staircases and an elevator, this building with its impressive architecture and unique design language provides the necessary information about the disenfranchisement, persecution and murder of the Jews of Europe, the victims to be honoured and the authentic sites of their murder in several rooms, some of which are illuminated by daylight, on a presentation area of around 800 square metres.

A CMS for the "Room of Places"

In the "Room of Places", historical film and photo material on a total of 220 exemplary sites of the persecution and extermination of Jews and other victims of Nazi terror is shown on four large screens. This includes mass shootings, extermination and concentration camps, ghettos, euthanasia sites, deportation routes and death marches. The presentation on the screens is realized by playing pre-produced videos in an endless loop. Our task was to transfer the presentation to a web interface so that the content of the individual chapters, including film and photo material, can be managed, changed and expanded via a CMS. A CMS based on Laravel was set up by the foundation and was to be connected to a front end.

Our solution

Implementation of the existing Laravel CMS in a customized Vue.js frontend with self-hosted OpenMapTiles map material

We implemented the CMS based on Laravel, which had already been prepared by the foundation, in a customized Vue application. For this purpose, a REST interface was set up on the CMS side, which delivers data to the Vue frontend. In addition to the content, parameters for the presentation process are also delivered via the CMS. A particular challenge was the implementation of the underlying map of Europe. As the application was to be implemented locally and without an internet connection, it was necessary to implement a local map server via OpenMapTiles.

Expertise used

Consulting & conception
UI/UX design
Web development

Technologies used

Laravel
Vue.js
The presentation of the locations is based on a map of Europe. At regular intervals, the system zooms in from the long shot to a specific location, and the corresponding texts, film sequences or photos are presented one after the other in a curated animation. With the implementation of the CMS, a random selection of the next location is possible, so that new variants of the presentation are created automatically. This ensures that a location that has already been covered is not shown again for a while. The sequence and animation of the film and photo material for the respective locations can be configured in the CMS with various transitions and freely definable time units. This means that our solution makes it easy to expand the exhibition content.
Photo of a screen in the Places room with map view

The content structure is still in progress

As all the contents of the presentation in the Room of Places still have to be entered into the CMS in an ongoing process, our solution is unfortunately not yet visible in the Room of Places.
In memory of the victims of the Shoah

Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

The Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was established in 2000 for the purpose of commemorating the victims of the Shoah. The foundation's central project is the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, which commemorates the systematic extermination of the Jews. The foundation is also involved in educational and research projects. Its work plays an important role in coming to terms with Germany's National Socialist history.