Special Exhibit Weapons of Mass

Hello from Ottawa: The Canadian War Museum and Its Special Exhibit Weapons of Mass Dissemination
By Susanne Pacher

Anybody who knows me and my personal family background knows that I absolutely abhor violence and war. War and conflict has existed all throughout human history and it has often baffled me that even in this day and age, in our supposedly advanced civilizations, we still haven’t found more peaceful ways of coexisting.

My trip to Ottawa this past weekend has been very exciting, entertaining and enjoyable, yet I felt the impulse to add a more serious stop to my itinerary and I decided to explore the new Canadian War Museum and it’s special exhibition: “Propaganda: Weapons of Mass Dissemination”.

The new Canadian War Museum opened in May of 2005 in a brand-new building on the banks of the Ottawa River, about 7 minutes west of downtown Ottawa by taxi or bus. Its mandate is to “Educate. Preserve. Remember” and the Museum focuses strictly on Canada’s role in various armed conflicts throughout history. The new museum building is an interesting story in itself. Designed by Raymond Moriyama of Moriyama & Teshima Architects, the innovative design of the Museum is based on the theme of “regeneration”, which not only alludes to the impact of war on the land, but also Nature’s ability to regenerate itself and recover from the devastation of human conflict.

In tune with natural regeneration, energy-efficient construction techniques and recycled materials were used in the construction of the building. The roof is covered by low-maintenance native, self-seeding grasses, and river water is used in its cooling system. Recycled copper panels from the roof of the Library of Parliament were used as cladding in parts of the interior of the building.

The building is an unusual structure, low-lying with jagged edges and angular, trapezoidal lines. When you enter inside there is a large central hall that connects both the south and north entrance. The building has a raw, fragmentary and unfinished quality to it, and the materials used include galvanized steel, concrete, wood, hard surfaces and strong, deep colour. It is not a comfortable, harmonic place, and it is not intended to be.

An immense seven-meter high audio visual presentation of the Museum’s content provides a glimpse of what is to come inside the main exhibition areas. Several features of the building deserve to be highlighted:

- the Museum features Morse Code windows in both English and French, reading “Lest We Forget” on the north peak, and other windows spell out the Museum’s initials “CWM”.