La Coupole - Museum of La Coupole

Museum of La Coupole

In 1986, the Espace Naturel Régional in Lille earmarked 10 million francs to develop the site as a tourist attraction for the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region with the intention of establishing a Second World War museum there. The plan was publicised in a special open weekend on 20–21 June 1987, attended by over 20,000 people, in which the dome's designer Werner Flos met Professor Reginald Victor Jones, a surviving member of the "Crossbow Committee", at Wizernes. The Ida tunnel and side chambers were opened to the public and used for an audio-visual exhibition of the site's history.

Local historian Yves le Maner was charged with the task of developing the project while a feasibility study was conducted into the possibility of completing some of the original excavation work to make the site safe for public access. The plans were approved in 1993 and the site was purchased by the Commune de Helfaut. The following year, the Conseil Général du Pas-de-Calais acquired the site. The 69-million-franc project (£7.5 million at 1997 prices) was largely underwritten by the Conseil Général, which provided 35 million francs, with another 17 million coming from the regional council. The European Community provided a further 12 million, the French State provided 3 million and the Saint-Omer municipal administration funded the remaining 1 million francs; a number of private shareholders were also involved. The Societé d'Equipement du Pas-de-Calais was contracted to carry out the development work, which involved excavating a further two metres (six feet) beneath the dome, clearing out and completing the unfinished concreting of some of the tunnels, building an exhibition centre and car park in the quarry floor and installing a lift to carry visitors up from the octagon to the dome.

The museum opened in May 1997. Visitors enter and leave through the Ida railway tunnel, though the rails have been removed and the floor levelled. Short branch tunnels lead off on either side; originally used for storage, they now display wartime objects. Headphone stands along the way present multi-lingual accounts of the construction and purpose of the facility. The tour continues along the Mathilde tunnel to reach a lift that has been installed to bring visitors up to the space beneath the dome, where the main exhibition area is located. Focusing on the story of the V-weapons, life in occupied France, and the conquest of space after the war, the tour presents audio-visual displays in English, French, Dutch and German. The museum houses a large number of original artifacts including a V-1 provided by London's Science Museum and a V-2 provided by the Smithsonian Institution, and incorporates a memorial to the 8,000 people who were shot in or deported from the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region during the war; computer terminals track the paths of several hundred of the deportees. In 2011, the museum welcomed 120,000 visitors. In July 2012, the museum opened a planetarium as part of Cerendac, a newly established Centre de ressources numériques pour le développement de l'accès à la connaissance (Resource Centre for the development of digital access to knowledge). The €6 million centre is funded by the Pas-de-Calais départment, the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, the French state, the EU and the intercommunality of Saint-Omer. Since 2010, the museum has also managed the V-3 site of the Fortress of Mimoyecques.