THOSE WHO FORGET THE PAST ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT

29% of Germans were born after the wall fell and have no memory of the injustice and grief it caused — and no way to imagine that it could happen again.

But unfortunately, border walls are coming back:

Half of the world’s border walls have been built after 2000.

And the low awareness among Berlin youth is a real problem,

says Klaus Schroeder (Freie Universität):

"Multiple studies show that the less high school students know about the DDR, the more likely they are to have a positive image of it".

TEAR DOWN THE WALL IN MINECRAFT EARTH

30 years after the Mauerfall, the Berlin DDR Museum let a new generation tear down the wall —now in augmented reality.

We built three iconic segments of the Wall in Minecraft Earth, the AR sequel to the popular game. Here, gamers were able to witness the wall in its full scale in Augmented Reality. And to gamify the installation, they could even take part in tearing down the oppressive wall on their favorite platform.

MERGING EDUCATION WITH ENTERTAINMENT

We partnered with the DDR Museum to create an exhibition space and developed a comprehensive package of teaching materials in concert with interactive learning specialists. This allowed teachers to not just drum up interest in the historical subject, but expand it into a fully immersive micro-course to drive critical reflection on the rise in political, digital, and physical border walls.

BRINGING OUR FORGOTTEN PAST TO LIFE

We wanted to drive a new generation to visit the DDR museum and explore the impact of their past. By using a beloved gaming platform, we brought an overlooked piece of history to the attention of a new generation.

ENABLING HISTORICAL EMPATHY

A key component of cutting-edge history education is giving students a real sense of what life was before. By using the newly launched AR applications interactive element, we transformed a dull history lesson to an immersive learning experience enabling real historical empathy.

FOSTERING CRITICAL REFLECTION

Finally, by expanding the gaming experience into a fully-fledged teaching module, we fostered curiosity and critical reflection on the role of border walls in our own times — prompting questions like if walls necessarily needed to be physical, or the role of digital firewalls and internet equality in democracy and critical discourse.

14 MONTHS, 300+ BUILDING HOURS, AND 2.500 BLOCKS COLLECTED IN MINECRAFT EARTH.

To make the experience immediately accessible inside the game environment, we had to build on the exact same premises as every teenager in Minecraft Earth: By mining the materials inside the globally spanning parallel reality.

And because we needed the wall to be historically and architecturally correct, we had to put in 300+ hours of game time to gather the exact materials needed for a credible reconstruction.

This also gave the team the familiarity with the ins and outs of Minecraft Culture to make the experience resonate with how and why gamers play.

The project gained 200+ earned press mentions for the DDR museum. The project was also shared and appraised by both the German Embassy and UNESCO:

“Tear Down This Wall fits perfectly with the values ??of UNESCO: Education, culture and communication between nations. That’s why we’re supporting it and sharing it on our platforms.”

Anna Enemark, Secretary-General, UNESCO

But most importantly, our teaching materials and buildplates were used 23.000+ times by youth to tear down the wall — and make sure a new one never takes its place.