Battle aftermaths, city ruins, wreckage and destruction. The scenes of history, especially from wartime, must be well recreated if they are not to disappoint. And modern museums in search of convincing reconstructions to help recount their histories call these days for top skills and technology to create the atmospheres their visitors expect.
May 19 saw the opening in northern France of a new museum based on the hedgerow battles of WWII following the Normandy beach landings by the allied powers fighting Hitler’s Germany.
And the Normandy Victory Museum (NVM) commissioned Panespol®—through our French distributor BRIMAR— to create and deliver some of its key scenic elements perfectly finished and painted, reflecting the destruction wrought by tank and infantry warfare.
That is a tests of the realism and adaptability of Panespol’s® decorative artistry than such dioramas recreating bombed village buildings. These detailed and atmospheric backdrops were adapted from a trio of our STONE and BRICK panel systems – 1. Piedra Segovia gris musgo (TX-078) 2. Piedra Segovia Tierra (PX-077) 3. Ladrillo Viejo (PX-022).
Panespol’s®amazing surfaces have succeeded in creating deep splits and cracks in the brickwork of houses and the stone wall of a ruined café. Like all company systems materials, this tough decorative polymer is durable but light. It allowed the museum’s curators and technicians to work it into their sets with ease and comfort. It meets the stringent fire regulations for museum materials and, as well as being non-toxic, these panels are 100% recyclable when no longer needed.
The new museum, which charts key WWII events of summer 1944, is located in Catz, near Carentan, on what was an airfield close to where the D-Day beach landings of Operation Overlord took place. It complements local tourist attractions in an area of great historical interest.
