Inside Bombardier’s Museum of Ingenuity
In May 2016, a brand new museum opened its doors at the original workshop of one of Canada’s greatest innovators, Bombardier. Far more than a showroom of snowmobiles, airplanes and subway cars, this permanent exhibition makes ingenuity something visitors can see and touch.
We first teamed up with the J. Armand Bombardier Museum back in 2014. Our mission: To tell Bombardier’s story from a small-town garage to a multinational firm, creating an exhibition that would showcase the creative process and ingenuity behind invention.
The exhibition is filled with moments that make ingenuity tangible for visitors. Interactive video portraits offer a chance to meet face-to-face with the designers and engineers at Bombardier, while games and puzzles put knowledge of engineering and mechanics to the test. A flight simulator awaits in the cockpit of a C-Series and an Idea Studio invites visitors to design their very own vehicles of the future.
Throughout the exhibition, interactive video portraits give viewers a behind-the-scenes
look at the creative process and a chance to meet the people behind invention.
One of the most interesting features of the Museum is the Fab Lab, a production workshop where manual tools, laser cutters and 3D printers are made available. Engaging the surrounding community, the workshop gives anyone with an idea the chance to develop a project from concept to reality. It's collaborative spaces like this one that breathe life into a museum. They make an exhibition's subject matter something visitors can truly engage with. And afterall, that's what it's all about, right?
