A museum designed by an Irish company has won the Council of Europe Museum Prize for the year 2000. In Flanders Fields, a museum in the Clothhall at Ieper (Ypres), Belgium, looks at the history of the first World War.
It was designed by Event Communications Ltd, which was founded in 1986 by a Dubliner, Ms Cel Phelan, and her Kilkenny-born husband, Bill. With offices in London and Dublin, Event is now Europe's largest creative group specialising in museum and visitor attraction design. In the past 14 years the company has created more than 80 major projects worldwide.
Those in Ireland include Ceol, the Irish Music Centre in Smithfield, Dublin; the Visitors' Centre at King John's Castle, Limerick; Trinity College Dublin's Book of Kells exhibition; and the new Chester Beatty Library at Dublin Castle due to open next February.
According to Ms Phelan, In Flanders Fields, which opened in mid-summer 1998 and was funded by the local authority, was not a big-budget project. However, the Council of Europe award "is the Oscar of museum prizes, the big one".
The prize has been awarded annually since 1977 to a museum proposed to the Parliamentary Assembly by the European Museum Forum.
According to the jury responsible for choosing In Flanders Fields, "visiting the museum is an emotional experience. Although the subject is a war fought in the early 20th century, it is made relevant to the general desire for peace by displays of the town's reconstruction and references to current conflicts elsewhere in the world."
Earlier this year the Ieper museum also won the Silver Otter Award from the British Travel Writers' Guild for its contribution to the local economy.