Architecture

This week was all about creating the path for the architectural tour based off the booklet that the museum gives to its docents. The person who was my original supervisor had given me a tour and showed me some features to highlight, however when she left for another position I did not get the chance to mark down all the features properly so I have to use this tour guide to structure the tour.

One of the issues I am running into is the ancillary nature of being an intern. I am doing work for the museum and they are very encouraging and give me anything I need but having just signed up and not been through a tour there(their tours run sporadically) I don’t have an idea of what guests are expecting based on the past results. My thesis will combine historical and architectural tours with the main difference being that architectural tours talk about the buildings themselves as structures and the historical tours talk about what happened in and around the buildings and how those buildings impacted the people of the area.

It is not as much of a setback though, I can essentially start fresh and figure out how the tour should start and end and if it can be artfully connected into an historical tour. For example, If someone were to come for the architectural aspects and learn about the columns and window spacing and construction methods but transition into learning about the work that was being done in the courthouse, that would be the prime way to conduct a tour. The ending of the tour obviously needs to happen in the large court room which is a centerpiece of the courthouse. There is a lot of emphasis on the rotunda area because it is striking and gives that “Americana” vibe but the preserved and restored courtroom is what the building was about. It is sparsely populated with some exhibits on the people who worked there as judges and a display of Spesard Holland who was a governor of Florida from Polk County, but there is great potential to integrate the AR components to bring the court room alive again and that would be a great feature to transition to. Next week I will be finalizing that architectural tour so I can start on the historical tour. The Museum exhibit tour will be last since the exhibits change periodically and need the least amount of research.