QR codes offer guided tour of new museum

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This article was published 23/08/2011 (4650 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A good smartphone and about half an hour is all it takes for a self-guided tour of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights construction site.

Just click a photo of one of five Quick Response code signs attached to the fence around the massive site at The Forks and you can hear what workers are building on the other side.

How much the QR code signs appeal to people will help the museum’s staff develop a similar interactive tour when the $310-million museum opens in about two years, spokeswoman Angela Cassie said Tuesday after taking the Free Press on a QR exterior tour.

“But we don’t want technology to be a barrier to anyone,” she added.

The five QR code stations outside the museum’s work site provide an explanation of its design and architect Antoine Predock’s intention to create a building that swirls upwards like a cloud.

“It’s like you’re working your way up from darkness into light, ending in the tower of hope,” tour guide Pamela VillaFranca says.

The five QR stops are outside the hard-hat area so no one is any danger from machinery or getting in the way of the 200 workers currently on the site. The codes are updated as construction progresses.

Each stop tells you about the part of the museum you’re looking at, from the four “roots” of the building — learning, creativity, perspective and partnership — to what will be inside when it opens.

About 200 people have taken the QR code tour since they were launched last July 1.

“It’s a visual way of giving people a sense of its scale,” Cassie said.

The date of the national museum’s opening in 2013 has not been set as planning continues on its content.

Right now the 260,000-square-foot building sort of looks like a big plate of spaghetti, but that will change in the coming weeks as its glass exterior is attached. That work will continue through the winter.

The CMHR also offers free guided group tours until Sept. 4.

VillaFranca said she’s hosted people from around the globe on the 45-minute walking tour. However, most come from Manitoba, she said, and want to learn more about the museum and what they’ve watched rise over the past two years.

Tours start at the Explore Manitoba Centre at The Forks with a short video. Tours run Thursday to Sunday.

For more information, call the museum at 289-2016 or check the museum’s website.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca

QR Code: QR stands for quick response. QR codes are ‘scanned’ when a smartphone photographs them. The codes are white squares with a bunch of black squiggly lines, like a crossword puzzle gone haywire. In your mobile device, the code automatically directs the phone to a website or video, or downloads an MP3 for listening. For it to work, the phone must have the correct software.