'THE BOMBE BREAKTHROUGH',
HUT 11A, BLETCHLEY PARK
Project context
‘The Bombe Breakthrough’ is a major new permanent exhibition in Hut 11A at Bletchley Park. It tells the story of the Bombe machines in the original location where those machines were used to break Enigma codes in WW2.
The exhibition focuses on the communications arms race between the complex, changing Enigma enciphering machine, and the tools developed by Allied Codebreakers to decrypt its messages. Testament to the Codebreakers’ mathematical and engineering genius and determination, the Bombe machines were the most successful of the codebreaking tools. Bombes sped up the process of message decryption – the intelligence they provided was crucial to Allied victory. They heralded the industrialisation of codebreaking, which has a significant legacy today.
Role
As Interpretation Consultant and Scriptwriter, I developed content for the exhibition in close collaboration with the Bletchley Park Exhibitions team, historian and designers at Nissen Richards Studio.
This involved understanding the complex workings of the Bombe machine, developing the exhibition narrative, distilling key messages, and writing exhibition text. I worked with the team to plot the content within the space and choose assets to illustrate the stories – selecting oral histories, developing AV, infographic and interactive briefs, sourcing images and clearing copyright. The secret nature of wartime codebreaking activity made sourcing some of the content particularly challenging.
I worked with the Bletchley team to balance people stories and technical information to satisfy different audience interests, ensure a range of interpretive media to engage different learning styles and to layer content, developing deeper level information for those interested in more detail.
Impact
Audiences, staff, volunteers and stakeholders have responded very positively to the exhibition since its opening on 24 March 2018.
“Devorah was a pleasure to work with. Her professional approach, creative thinking, and attention to detail were key to turning technical, complex content into a clear, engaging narrative, and an interpretive approach that has had fantastic feedback from our broad audience. We particularly appreciated that she was as dedicated as our internal team to accuracy, incorporating changes quickly, and keeping a dialogue going with us throughout. I would thoroughly recommend her.”
Date: November 2016 - March 2018
Client: Bletchley Park Trust
Interpretation and Scriptwriting: Devorah Moritz
Exhibition and graphic design: Nissen Richards Studio
AV design: FRAY Studio, Carolyn Downing
Lighting design: Studio ZNA Ltd
Exhibition contractor: Factory Settings Ltd
Project management: Artelia UK
https://bletchleypark.org.uk/whats-on/hut-11a-the-bombe-breakthrough