Mordecai Historic Park

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA

Just because an exhibit is about history doesn’t mean it has to look old!

The Mordecai Historic Park Visitor Center is housed in a renovated historic home in downtown Raleigh; the natural wood floors, high ceilings, and beautiful window details were a huge inspiration for us during the design process. The final product is clean, sophisticated, and visually interesting. The educational exhibits include a family tree with representation of the enslaved population over the years, a timeline of the property and the people who lived here, as well as sections that cover faith, southern womanhood, and slavery.

The Design Dimension team designed and fabricated unique graphic panel carriers to make the timeline “float” off the floor. The timeline includes a history of the plantation property from the Antebellum Era through the 20th century. The text, images, artifacts, and flipbooks tell the story of the people who lived on the property and how the Civil War and Reconstruction affected them.

The Mordecai Historic Site staff had collected an incredible amount of physical and digital artifacts over the years. We were able to custom design and build stands for historic photographs and books, as well as make mounts for an embroidery sampler and horse bridle. The digital artifacts included scanned census records, hand-drawn maps, oral histories, images, newspaper articles, etc. Many of the images accompanied text or artifacts, while the census records, slave inventories, and oral histories were displayed using flipbooks and touchscreens. One kiosk even helps visitors learn how to pronounce “More-duh-key”.