A new poppy field blooms at the National World War I Museum

The sea of red poppies visitors encounter when they first walk through the doors of the National World War I Museum got an upgrade this week, a decade after the museum first constructed its iconic poppy field under a glass ceiling at the museum’s entrance.

Museum staff replaced the 9,000 poppies that patrons view from a glass bridge for the first time since the field made its debut in December 2006. The familiar silk poppies were removed to be sold online or at the museum store and replaced with new flowers.

Each poppy represents 1,000 World War I combatants who lost their life during their service, honoring the 9 million total soldiers killed.

“It was an important decision for the museum to make because when guests enter the museum, it’s such a mind-blowing, such a moving experience, for people to see this huge poppy field and to understand and put into context just how many people lost their lives during the course of World War I and really how that continues to affect us to this very day,” said Mike Vietti, the museum’s director of marketing.

The museum also debuted a new logo this week, according to a release. Titled “Intersections,” the logo features nine intersecting lines that conjure a “tangle” of images related to the war: barbed wire, railroad tracks, factories, beams of broken homes, the chaos of war.

The logo, designed for free by St. Louis-based advertising agency Rodgers Townsend, is also intended to evoke larger themes, such as the “intersection of individual lives and entire nations, the clash of old cultures and new ideas and ... the startling art forms launched in the aftermath of the conflict,” a release stated.

“World War I is not simple — it’s complicated and challenging subject matter,” National World War I Museum and Memorial President and CEO Matthew Naylor said in a statement. “The Intersections logo allows individuals to discover its meaning for themselves and on their own terms, while complimenting (sic) the Museum’s mission to educate the public about the Great War and its enduring impact.”

Poppies have become a symbol of World War I because of their presence in conflict areas, including France and Belgium. In the wake of the war, the flowers grew in areas destroyed by combat and marked by death.

“It’s really a symbol of both death and also life,” Vietti said.

This story was originally published February 17, 2017 at 2:52 PM with the headline "A new poppy field blooms at the National World War I Museum."