Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum

History Museum

Avitecture, Inc. completed the design and installation of the state-of-the art multimedia systems at the New Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem, Israel.

Inaugurated in a solemn ceremony attended by hundreds of heads of state, government officials, intellectuals, Nobel prize winners, and dignitaries from 40 nations, the new museum opened on March 15, 2005. As many as 10,000 visitors a day have toured the museum. Avitecture, Inc. worked under a direct contract with Yad Vashem and teamed with BARKAI Benny Brookstein Ltd.

Yad Vashem is the Jewish people’s memorial to the six million Jews murdered between 1939 and 1945. Containing the world’s largest repository of information on the Holocaust, Yad Vashem is a leader in Shoah (Hebrew for “holocaust”) education, commemoration, research, and documentation. A visit is a powerful, multi-sensory experience.

Designed by Moshe Safdie Associates Ltd., the New Holocaust History Museum was a decade in the making and cost nearly $40,000,000. The museum is a concrete prism, 59-feet high and 660-feet long and occupying over 47,000 square feet, that cuts through the Yad Vashem hillside. A network of eleven, underground galleries, lit by skylights, runs the length of the structure. Avitecture, Inc. integrated audio-video systems with information technology to enable AV displays in each gallery to show film clips, survivors’ stories, and short documentaries. The Holocaust History Museum is thought to be one of the world’s most AV-intensive museums. More than 140 flat-panel displays for 130 streams of video are fully integrated into the exhibit. At the entrance to the museum, visitors see Michal Rovner’s video art projected onto an unique, 43-foot high triangular screen. Dozens of projectors are used in the galleries. Control equipment is sited in control rooms with distribution by CAT-5 cabling. The museum’s AV systems are incorporated into Yad Vashem’s information technology system.

“Avitecture is honored to have helped in implementing Yad Vashem’s mission,” said Sidney L. Lissner, president of Avitecture, Inc. “Working with Yad Vashem was an enlightening experience.”

Dorit Harel designed the exhibits. Ruhama Hammer was Yad Vashem’s AV consultant.

Volkswagen Group of America

Showroom, Atrium, and Divisible Conference Room

Volkswagen Group of America’s new national headquarters building in Herndon, Virginia, a suburban of Washington, DC, has several distinctive applications of audiovisual technology, thanks to Avitecture, Inc. Working with Jones Lang LaSalle to outfit and integrate Volkswagen Group of America’s new headquarters audiovisual systems, Avitecture installed three 103” plasma displays in the six-story atrium plus a fourth 103”. The Volkswagen and Audi showrooms, atrium, and divisible conference room all have been designed, installed, coordinated, trained are supported by Avitecture, Inc.

Thomas Jefferson Foundation

Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center and Smith Education Center at Monticello

For the Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s award-winning Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center and Smith Education Center at Monticello, Charlottesville, Virginia, the home of the nation’s third president, Avitecture, Inc. provided full design services for the Orientation Theater and Gallery Building, Lobby, Liberty Gallery, and other gallery spaces. Working closely with Ayers Saint Gross, the architect, and with Staples and Charles, the exhibit designer, Avitecture designed and integrated an advanced audiovisual system that provides the visitor with a rich and exciting experience.

In the Michelle Smith Gallery, the Boisterous Sea of Liberty, with 21 vertically-arrayed flat panel displays, including seven touch panels, give visitors access to more than 250 image and text displays related to political, religious and intellectual freedom.

The Words of Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson’s thoughts literally come to light in this high-tech display that is as much a work of art as a vehicle for providing information. Inlaid into the bluestone floor of the Stacy Smith Liss Gallery are words – America, The Arts, Conduct, Education, Government, Knowledge, Liberty, Monticello, Progress, Reason, Religion, Rights, Science, Slavery, and Thomas Jefferson – that capture the broad scope of Jefferson’s ideas. When a visitor steps on one of the words, key phrases from a quotation related to that word are projected in light at his or her feet. Then, phrase by phrase, the full quotation moves across the floor and is projected on a wall.

Approximately 200 quotations by and about Jefferson appear in The Words of Thomas Jefferson. The words are displayed exactly as Jefferson wrote them, complete with his idiosyncratic spelling and punctuation, as transcribed by the editors of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series.

The digital technology of The Words of Thomas Jefferson was developed specifically for the exhibition by the Small Design Firm of Cambridge, Mass.

American Association for Justice

Headquarters

When the American Association for Justice needed professional consultation and planning for their new headquarters in Washington, DC, near the Verizon Center, Staubach, now Jones Lang LaSalle, engaged Avitecture to conduct a needs analysis for AAJ’s audiovisual requirements. That project resulted in Avitecture’s designing, installing and supporting the audiovisual systems in seven rooms on several floors. The audiovisual systems are found in computer training rooms, a divisible conference room, the lobby display, and AAJ’s boardroom.

AARP

National Headquarters

AARP engaged Avitecture, Inc. for its Space Realignment Project, an ongoing project for renovating up to 80 conference rooms in several AARP buildings. Most conference rooms include basic presentation capabilities with ceiling-mounted projectors or flat panel displays, playback of DVDs, audio conferencing, a program-sound system, and media control system. Several of the rooms also include high-definition videoconferencing systems. For AARP’s national headquarters in Washington, DC, Avitecture upgraded a suite of offices, including the Board Room, Brickfield Center, and Executive Conference Room. Each space enjoys powerful presentation capabilities through high-resolution rear projection, high-definition videoconferencing, integrated audio conferencing, and a media control system. The Brickfield Center also includes the ability to tie into the existing production system for live events.

Barcelo Crestline

Corporate Offices

For the corporate offices of Barceló Crestline, a premier international hotelier, Avitecture, Inc. designed and installed remotely controlled window shades and lighting as well as a remotely controlled audiovisual in system in the executive boardroom. Avitecture installed Lutron QED shades on all windows on the third floor. The shades and lighting are integrated into the daylight harvesting lighting control system by Lite Touch and are controlled via the audiovisual system’s Crestron touch panel. Wall switches are installed in all of the offices for local control. Hand held remotes are zoned throughout for override control of electronic timers. An interesting feature of the system is an Astronomical Time Clock, that is preset through the touch panel, for different times of day depending on the time of year. The clock tells the programmed system to open or to close shade according to the seasons of the year automatically. Avitecture also provided and installed draperies in the lobby area.

President Lincoln's Cottage

At The Soldier's Home

On the grounds of President Lincoln’s Cottage, in the Robert H. Smith Visitor Education Center, Avitecture also installed large, interactive flat-panel displays. After a $15 million restoration by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, President Lincoln’s Cottage, located on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, DC, is open to the public for the first time, giving Americans an intimate view of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and family life. From June through November, 1862–1864, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln and his family lived at the Soldiers’ Home in Washington, DC. Avitecture integrated systems in the Visitor Education Center with exhibits that bring to life the history of the Soldiers’ Home, wartime Washington, and President Lincoln’s extraordinary leadership. A special exhibition gallery presents rotating displays of objects related to Lincoln and his legacy. In “Lincoln’s Cabinet Room,” visitors can participate in an innovative interactive experience exploring Lincoln’s toughest decisions related to emancipation, politics, and military affairs. In the center’s orientation theater, a small space, Avitecture’s innovative solution to display the largest possible images was to place three vertically-mounted projectors, fed by three video servers, to project in concert images on rolled-down window shades. When the window shades are rolled up, visitors see the cottage itself across the street.

George Mason University Hylton Performing Arts Center

Hylton Performing Arts Center

At George Mason University’s new 85,000 square-foot Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas, Virginia, audiences enjoy the performing arts in state-of-the-art theaters and public spaces equipped with Avitecture audio, video, and control systems.

1,121-seat Merchant Hall is an elegantly styled opera house with a 100-foot stage and orchestra pit. Its clever design provides every audience member an intimate experience and the perfect setting for a variety of genres, such as symphonies, dance, opera and theater.

270-seat Gregory Family Theater offers flexible seating arrangements that make it ideal for dance, theater, cabaret and chamber groups. With an open floor plan, it is the optimal choice for customizing special events.

The Didlake Grand Foyer is a two-story lobby with a full glass front for plenty of natural light that seats over 200 for dinner and holds over 500 for receptions.

The Buchanan Partners Gallery on the second floor of the lobby serves as a focal point to showcase works by local and regional visual artists and adds yet another artistic element to the Didlake Grand Foyer.

Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church

Sanctuary

Worshipers at Washington DC’s historic Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church can enjoy clear, bright visual projections and crystal clear sound in the church’s main sanctuary, graced with marble and stained glass, thanks to an Avitecture multimedia system, artfully integrated with the architecture of this house of worship, constructed in 1917. The state-of-the-art technology provides complete remote control from the pulpit and from the gallery and yet is virtually invisible to worshipers.

Accenture

Conference Room

Avitecture, Inc. built the Idea Exchange Center, a multi-room facility that provides an innovative backdrop for this international consulting firm to communicate its capabilities to clients.

America Online (Aol.)

Auditorium

For more than a decade, Avitecture, Inc. has delivered a number of AV solutions for this internet giant, including installations in the executive boardroom, auditoriums, creative and conference centers, demonstration facilities, and focus testing labs at various campus sites.

Boeing

Secure Conference Room

Avitecture, Inc. has provided this aerospace and technology leader with a number of AV solutions, including a secure conference center, simulation labs, and custom installations in several management offices.

CGI-AMS

Lobby

Avitecture, Inc. has provided this government services company with conference and demonstration centers, executive boardrooms, videoconference facilities and technology labs for more than 15 years.

The Gallup Organization

Videoconferencing Room

Avitecture, Inc. was the AV leader on a design-build team that created this polling organization’s Great Hall, a multi-purpose facility for training, sales, and focus testing.

National Association of Realtors

Boardroom

This landmark green building overlooks the US Capitol. Its floor-to-ceiling windows and boat-shaped profile presented Avitecture with daunting design challenges. Avitecture’s solutions have proven both elegant and effective in the stunning boardroom, the multi-purpose event room, the media room, a training facility and multiple conference rooms. Since the original installation, Avitecture has provided NAR with several AV system upgrades and expansions.

National Republican Congressional Committee

Conference Room

Avitecture, Inc.’s automated satellite broadcast television studio, built specifically for the National Republican Congressional Committee, allows Representatives to reach constituents across the nation.

Raytheon

Auditorium

Avitecture, Inc. has provided this leading defense contractor with auditoriums and videoconferencing facilities all along the Eastern Seaboard.

Scitor

Lobby

As the primary AV integrator for this high-tech government defense contractor, Avitecture, Inc. has provided presentation conference centers and a video simulation room, as well as the complete build out of their AV facilities at the new corporate headquarters in Chantilly, Virginia.

US Government Facility

Monitoring Facility

Avitecture, Inc. was asked by this United States Federal Agency to design and install a Coordination Center to monitor the national security status of the United States. This 24/7 facility houses six United States security agencies that monitor the terrorism threat level.

Washington and Lee University

Lecture Hall

Avitecture, Inc. equipped all of the classrooms at Washington and Lee’s business school with multimedia-teaching tools.