Reconstruction of the murder of William of Orange - Museum Prinsenhof Delft
The 10th of July 1584 Stadholder-Prince William of Orange was assassinated in the Prinsenhof in Delft; two bullet holes in the wall are evidence of the attack. Every Dutch citizen knows the story and the murder scene is a veritable shrine to the Father of the nation.
The obvious thing to do would have been to transform this room into a spectacular scene; instead, a very subtle, low-key and moving solution has been chosen to bring the crime scene into the visitor’s minds and hearts.
The perpetrator and the victim come into life as white silhouettes, projected on the walls of the actual staircase where the murder took place. The murderer waits, points and shoots. A loud bang sounds and the victim slumps on the stairs, next to the bullet holes that are still there. The national anthem starts playing softly in the background. A nearby interactive screen enables the visitor to reconstruct the crime as a ‘cold case’, using hitech forensic data acquired during a scientific study.