Over the past ten years the Higgins Armory Museum, an iconic institution in Worcester housing thousands of medieval arms and armor, has felt like a distant memory for the city. Like many of the ghostly buildings around the city—abandoned factories, offices, stores—another beloved space fell into the past. However, all was not particularly lost when in 2014 the Worcester Art Museum acquired a portion of the Higgins Armory Collection: the shields, the swords, the suits of armor. The diverse collection of around 2,000 objects contains pieces from around the world spanning centuries, some objects even being over a thousand years old. From this acquisition, the WAM held onto the keystone elements of the Higgins Armory that maintain the past in a new home while giving them new purpose and life. Worcester natives feel reinvigorated by the space, by the efforts that have been made to honor the city’s most historically influential places.
I recall the Worcester Art Museum, a main pillar in my youth, as a source of escape and diversion: cooling off on summer breaks surrounded by stone-cold walls, or seeing glimpses of spring flowers arrangements around the museum during the Flora in Winter exhibitions. During the first few years following the acquisition, any time I visited the museum I remember seeing the suits of armor displayed around the galleries, occasionally having their own dedicated exhibitions. Eleven years later, in November 2025, the Worcester Art Museum opened its newest permanent exhibition spaces, the Arms and Armor Galleries.
With the introduction of the new galleries, the WAM both honors and revitalizes the history and objects from the Higgins Collection. Jeffrey Forgeng, the Higgins Curator of Arms & Armor and Medieval Art and previous curator at the Higgins Armory, informed me that WAM had dedicated gallery space for the collection since the acquisition in 2013 for the express purpose of honoring the collection. The Arms and Armory Collection distinguishes the WAM from other regional museums as one of the largest, and only museums with such a collection.
When walking into the Arms and Armor Gallery you are met with a fantastic chain mail chandelier, hanging in the center of the room over a series of suits of armor. The space is designed with clever medieval motifs, minimalist gothic arches framing the objects on display, and free space to roam around the objects. The back gallery is overwhelming with grandiosity in the sheer amount of objects presented in the open storage design. Along the walls, stretching from ceiling to floor behind glass, live hundreds of shining and intricate pieces of armor, mostly from the European Medieval period. Open storage—an entirely new convention that displays a majority of the Arms and Amor collection all at once—allows visitors to research and explore the objects while almost playing a challenging game of “I-spy” among the metal. The lances, swords, horse armor, and full suits of armor in shining silver and gold are on display in abundance, showing the opulence of what once was the Higgins Armory. Unlike the Higgins, the WAM has been able to display almost every object in the collection, bringing Higgins history and contribution to the preservation and collection of arms and armory to the forefront.
People of all ages are able to interact with objects and play within the gallery. Throughout the space one can handle swords, feel the weight of a shield, and take silly photographs while trying on helmets. Children walk through the space with dolls and puppets from the gallery’s Family Nook, while couples roam quietly hand-in-hand, and a grandfather passes along his extensive lancing knowledge to his grandson. People’s interactions offer an exciting juxtaposition between the sterile steel and iron weaponry. Ultimately, the space is structured to educate and invite everyone.
This interplay of community interaction with arts fields not only honors the past but also builds onto the third spaces that Worcester needs more of. The WAM’s active efforts to create and sustain third spaces offers an educational, fantastical display which builds on visitors’ creative and exploratory impulses. As Forgeng also mentions, “The galleries were meant to be inclusive, accessible, welcoming, to appeal to a very broad demographic, to revitalize WAM’s appeal to a broader visitorship. They were also intended to honor the Higgins legacy for a community with fond memories of the Armory.” With this consciousness and attention to Worcester as a community, the WAM has taken innovative approaches to show deep care and respect for its community which sustains it.
While Worcester has lost several third spaces around the city, the arts community offering new programs and spaces like that of the WAM supports greater connection for people in real life, in real spaces, all while being entertained and exploring histories. Novelty and attention to community is what brings people together, and the Arms and Armor galleries provide both these facets in the forefront of their mission to create a successful and hopefully long lasting space.