ARCHITECTURE AND SCENOGRAPHY
This 1200 square meter wing-shaped building will be divided into: a 550 square meter immersion room, a 410 square meter exhibition hall, and a 130 square meter surface devoted to office work and to pedagogical purposes. The scenography unfolds chronologically and didactically. The building, sheltering the C-47 plane, features paratroopers, as they are getting ready to fly from England.
The first immersion room of the new building will invite visitors to actually enter a C-47 plane and “meet” its crew and paratroopers as they were about to be dropped during the night of June 5-6th 1944. The three other immersion rooms will evoke the fights around Sainte-Mère-Eglise marketplace and those, which took place in the marshes as well as the storming of bridges before the battle of hedges. Then, visitors will enter an Exhibition Hall where they will discover a Piper Cub plane, which was recently offered to the Airborne Museum by an American donor Mr Robert Wilson.
FINANCING
The financing incurred for this project for the last five years by the association, amount to 1 700 000 euro before tax. These expenses are related to land purchasing buying new collector’s items and preliminary studies. The association still has to raise nearly 4 657 000 euro before tax to achieve the first stage of this project. Everything considered, the first stage of the project amounts to a total cost of 6 345 000 euro before tax. Up to now, the association has not benefited from any public subsidies. The association has invested almost all its available funds by self-financing the land purchasing, the buying of collector’s items and that of preliminary studies.
To limit our resorting to borrowings, the association is looking for an opportunity to be granted at least 700 000 euro financial help from the outside.
The association wishes to start a second buildind phase in 2014. This stage will first consist in refurbishing and renovating the building now sheltering the C-47 plane and, secondly, in constructing the second building with its conference and movie projection room as well as a temporary exhibition room.
This second stage, costing about 1 500 000 euro, will not start unless the association finds the necessary outside monetary funds.The later would be exclusively devoted to the reimbursement of the borrowings of the first stage.
Thanks to this action and with the financial contribution of all donors who will support it, the Airborne Museum association is willing to offer new generations a museum that meets their expectations so that weall remember that thousands of soldiers, who were hardly 20 years old, gave their lives to restore Peace and to freeus here, in Sainte-Mère-Eglise.
If you want to help us in this extension project, send your donations by completing this form :
