With 23,000 visitors a month, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco has added fifteen interactive stops to allow visitors to explore the huge variety of artworks and discover their incredible stories and histories.
The stained glass windows are excellent examples where interpretation adds dramatically to the visitor experience as each of these have fabulous stories to tell.
Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, is a world class, globally recognized, building that has hundreds of visitors a day who can explore the rich history and the stories contained in stained glass windows, carvings, artworks and a renowned replica of the 15th-century Ghiberti Doors.
Independent designer, Ellen Manerud, worked with the cathedral team to create a visitor experience that could be enjoyed by all, including self-guided visitors. The visitor journey includes fifteen kiosks that each provide a museum-like interactive experience in a spiritual space.
Visitors love being able to explore the stories for themselves.
Each interactive station allows the visitor to pause; admire what’s in front of them and dive into details to learn more. It’s a perfect use of Curio allowing visitors to discover stories and fascinating facts about modern artworks; a Keith Haring triptych that was gifted by Yoko Ono; sacred objects that were in the rubble of the 1906 earthquake; and of course, the loss of so much during the fire at that time and the subsequent rebuild. All of this is available in multiple languages to include all visitors.
Multiple languages also help the variety of tourists to enjoy the stories behind the cathedral.
Ellen also created a fun children's map and treasure hunt; a printed guide; and worked with the docents to ensure their optional guided experience was also consistent with the new visitor experience.
Ellen chose Curio primarily because of its ability to do so much within a limited budget:
“We could never have had so many interactives if we had to build them all from scratch, and the client can now manage them easily themselves even doing things such as adding new languages without needing to come back to me”