INSIDE PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S COTTAGE

Lighting&Sound America, June 2008

By Judith Rubin

A change comes over visitors to President Lincoln’s Cottage, located on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, D.C., when they are invited to actually sit on the drawing-room furniture.

After their initial surprise, they settle into chairs they had surmised were 1800s antiques, and turn their attention to the tour guide, who touches a button on a handheld remote. The period chandeliers dim, and the storytelling begins.

“It came from not having a collection,” says curator Erin Mast, of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which operates the attraction. “We decided to let people use the furnishings— because many of them are reproductions—and to make the experience about Lincoln’s leadership, growth, and change during the Civil War. Our strength was in the story and the place, not the architecture and the objects.”

There are no original artifacts in the Lincoln Cottage, save the building itself, which was restored by the National Trust and opened to the public on February 18. The trust decided on a theatrical approach, to speak of ideas and actions rather than concentrate on objects. The tour of the cottage uses some AV technology, but mostly it relies on the live spoken word, combined with a few subtle theatrical lighting effects to focus attention, to take visitors inside the period and inside Lincoln's mind.

We surveyed a broad group,” says Mast, “and found a lot of misconceptions—so we decided to interpret emancipation, which is a key story for us, since Lincoln worked on that policy during his first summer here. We look at why it took Lincoln time to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, and what happened as a consequence. And we developed a theme about what the place meant for Lincoln as an alternate residence to the White House: It was a sanctuary, yet it brought him closer to the war. It is not our mission to tell the entire story of the Civil War: We focus on how Lincoln came face-to-face with the war here, but also on his family and the visitors—at least 100 of them—who called on him, usually uninvited, when he was here.”

The lack of a collection “gave us the freedom to use media and reproductions in new ways," notes Mast. "Everything is put there for a reason. Where we thought an artifact was needed to support the story, we used one. Where we felt we needed an image, we display one on a monitor. Where we wanted specific words from the past, we recorded actors speaking them."

The residence was, in fact, the official (pre-Camp David) retreat of four different presidents: Lincoln, Buchanan, Hayes, and Arthur. Built in 1842, this two-story Gothic Revival dwelling now holds within its walls a sophisticated infrastructure. It powers and controls theatrical dimmers, an architectural lighting control system, and an AV system that tour guides can operate with custom remotes as they take visitors through the rooms.

A few steps away from the cottage proper is the Robert H. Smith Visitor Education Center, with a mix of AV and exhibits, plus a special gallery called “Lincoln’s Toughest Decisions,” where people can re-enact important Lincoln decision-making situations. The program was developed with VideoArt and Blair, Dubilier & Associates. There are additional exhibits with short films, and an orientation theatre with a three-screen film produced by Cortina Productions. There is also a special exhibit gallery with rotating displays of artifacts. George Sexton Associates provided lighting design services for the visitor center through MFM Design, the exhibit designers contracted by the National Trust. Sexton’s design, included in the exhibit galleries, shop, and “Lincoln’s Toughest Decisions,” includes recessed flush lighting track with miniature MR-16 lamped wall-washers and object lights by Litelab. In the building’s atrium are Edison Price Multipurpose 36/5AA adjustable fixtures, used to light the large-scale graphics. Bob Hartounian of PPI Consulting designed the AV system; ExPlus was the exhibit fabricator.