Vue Orleans

CambridgeSeven

Short description

Vue Orleans is an unprecedented cultural attraction and observation experience that takes place in a New Orleans historical landmark, the former World Trade Center. While the building itself was transformed into a luxury Four Seasons Hotel, the culture and history embedded within the building is brought to the forefront in a one-of-a-kind exhibit experience.

Visitors are swept away in an immersive, exciting, and engaging journey that highlights Crescent City’s fascinating 300-year history and vibrant culture. Every turn entertains, educates, and surprises through interactive media exhibits celebrating the essence of New Orleans and how the Mississippi River shaped its physical and cultural landscape.

The full New Orleans experience—music, food, art, civil rights, river, and bayou—comes alive through memorable exhibit design and colorful environmental graphics enhanced with experiential technology, including movement-responsive digital murals, transparent storytelling displays, augmented reality viewers, game-based interactives, and immersive theaters. By celebrating multiculturalism and how the confluence of cultures shaped the city, Vue Orleans literally offers a new perspective of the iconic Big Easy.

Visitors start at a large gesture-based interactive wall, which offers an entertaining way to learn about NOLA, and then meet virtual, life-size historical figures who respond in real time to visitor engagement. At the simulated café modeled after a quintessential New Orleans restaurant, Chef Kevin Belton and Cook Poppy Tooker share fun facts about signature New Orleans dishes. Standing beneath giant trumpet bells, visitors use touchless technology to learn about influential New Orleans artists from Basile Bares to Big Freedia, and just like a real evening on Bourbon Street, an energetic parade periodically erupts, overtaking the whole environment.

Each space of Vue Orleans is infused with authenticity and special moments that teach about the Crescent City. Ascending from the ground-floor galleries to the 33rd floor is no ordinary elevator ride, but an immersive timeline spanning 300 years of urban development. Video screens surround visitors with sweeping views of New Orleans as time progresses around them, offering a one-minute history of the impressive city.

The exhibits conclude at the top of the observatory, offering a 360-degree view of the city. Through augmented reality viewers, visitors preview what the city offers them once they leave Vue Orleans. More than simply enhancing the view like old-school, coin-operated viewfinders once did, the digital viewers swivel, zoom, and display facts about historic sites, buildings and attractions along the panoramic view. Highlighting the Mississippi River’s important relationship to the city, the Working River multi-user interactive table invites visitors to grab the wheel of a Mississippi riverboat and try their hand at piloting it around notorious Algiers Point.

The observation deck incorporates impactful exhibit designs, including a floor-spanning terrazzo compass rose that orients visitors to the expansive panorama. An original mural of the Mississippi River wraps the interior wall, highlighting significant geographic and man-made features built up over time, while the glass exterior walls are annotated with a backlit ribbon of archival imagery directly corresponding to the areas in view. As an exhibition designed to capture the confluence of culture that shaped New Orleans, Vue Orleans itself is a confluence of design feats and innovative visitor experiences.