Worcester Art Museum announces opening date of new arms and armor galleries

The Worcester Art Museum announced the opening date for new permanent galleries for its arms and armor collection: one of the largest of its kind in America.

The galleries will open to the public on Nov. 22 after more than a decade of planning, fundraising and construction. The newly designed, 5,000-square-foot space will display over 1,000 objects, including swords, helmets and full suits of armor. The museum acquired the collection in 2014 after the nearby Higgins Armory ended museum operations. Part of the agreement of obtaining the collection required the Worcester Art Museum to designate a permanent home for its objects.

“This was part of the childhood of everyone in central Massachusetts: the Higgins,” said Director Matthias Waschek, who joined the Worcester Art Museum in late 2011. He says that the new galleries mark a big moment not just for the museum, but also for the city of Worcester. “We were able to preserve this collection, which could have easily gone out of state, easily gone to another museum,” he said. “We preserved it for Worcester.”

The design will transform the museum’s former library into a new space that pays homage to the grandiosity of the Higgins Armory Great Hall. It will have 16-foot high ceilings and arched windows as well as an open storage layout. Arms and Armory Curator Jeffrey L. Forgeng says the design will allow visitors to witness the process that goes into preserving works in a museum.

“Visitors love the behind-the-scenes aspect of museum work,” said Forgeng. “What actually happens behind those closed doors? What does it take to conserve a collection? To display it to steward it in various ways?”

Forgeng chose to center three suits of armor from different continents and time periods in one of the new galleries: one from Renaissance Europe, another from the Mughal period in India and another from late 19th-century Sudan. “There's a kind of universality to the figure of the sort of armored warrior, the armored hero that you can find in all kinds of cultures,” he said.

Construction is still in progress, but the museum has already announced programming centered around the collection. Forgeng will give a talk later on April 27 about the process of opening this much-anticipated gallery. In the fall, the museum will host a series of previews and celebrations in the lead-up to the grand opening.