10 Shortlisted Designs for UK’s National Holocaust Memorial Open to Public Feedback

10 Shortlisted Designs for UK’s National Holocaust Memorial Open to Public Feedback

The UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation and Malcolm Reading Consultants have announced the 10 shortlisted teams that will be contending for the design of the UK’s National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Center in London. The project will be located in Victoria Tower Gardens, north of River Thames and on borders with the Palace of Westminster.

The organizers of the international competition, which was launched in September 2016, were seeking an “emotionally powerful and sensitively designed memorial.” Between the 92 teams that entered the competition, 10 teams were chosen and invited to submit concept designs for their proposals. These teams include renowned design firms like Zaha Hadid Architects, Foster and Partners, Adjaye Associates, and Studio Libeskind. The 10 teams have submitted their design proposals for the memorial and underground learning center which were published by the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation on the 26th of January. They are open for public feedback which will be essential for the jury’s final decision.

“We are consulting on the shortlist with the public, those working in the field of Holocaust remembrance and education, and technical experts. This consultation will play a crucial role in informing the jury’s final decision on the memorial.” _ UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation
The complete announcement by the foundation can be found here: 

Here are all 10 entries submitted by the shortlisted design teams:

1.Adjaye Associates and Ron Arad Architects

“We have approached the National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre as an opportunity to unearth the complexity of the Holocaust story, which we see as a series of layers that have become hidden by time. Our proposal aims to reveal these layers . . . through an organic living monument that evolves over time, capable of both affecting and being affected by its users,” says Adjaye Associates and Ron Arad Architects

2.Allied Works

“Our proposal for the memorial is not an object, but the creation of a sacred space to serve the voices of survivors. It rises from the grounds of Victoria Tower Gardens, woven into the daily life of London. Folding back like a prayer shawl, it holds visitors in an embrace with the spoken word while framing a view to Parliament, underlining our shared accountability,” says Allied Works.

3.Anish Kapoor and Zaha Hadid Architects

“Meteorites, mountains, and stones are often at the center of places of reflection, especially in the Jewish tradition,” says Zaha Hadid Architects.
“A memorial to the Holocaust must be contemplative and silent, such that it evokes our empathy. It must be a promise to future generations that this terrible chapter in human history can never occur again.
Our proposal for the Holocaust Memorial sits as a strong singularity – an identifiable image – that allows people to focus on the immensity of the message being conveyed.”

4.Caruso St John Architects, Marcus Taylor and Rachel Whiteread

“The catastrophic events of the Holocaust took place outside the UK and the mass graves, remnants of atrocity and concentration camps that are found in mainland Europe do not exist on British soil. A memorial in London will not, therefore, commemorate a particular place, but instead, it can embrace a universal theme and foreground the first-hand testimony of survivors,” says Caruso St. John Architects.

5.Diamond Schmitt Architects

“The subtlety of the design of the UKHM gradually reveals the power of the opposing forces that created the descent into a horror of hitherto unimaginable scale and a humanity of unlimited compassion and selfless commitment,” says Diamond Schmitt.
“To create a memorial that is commensurate with its prominent site, and appropriate to the content of such gravity, the architecture most suitable to serve the purposes of remembrance and caution against the repeat of intolerance, is one of restraint, yet notable form.”

6.Foster and Partners and Michal Rovner

“With minimum disturbance to the park, a ramp descends into the earth. Evocative of train tracks that terminated in the camps or the brown brick-lined corridors leading down to the gas chambers. This is the way to the Time Left Memorial,” says Foster and Partners.

7.Heneghan Peng

“The Memorial is an ear that connects visitors with the voices and testimonies of those who experienced the Holocaust. Set within the individual voids that occupy the walls of the Memorial, their sonic aggregate becomes the primary material of its sensory construction,” says Heneghan Peng.

8.John McAslan + Partners and MASS Design Group

“In Jewish tradition, the laying of a stone at a grave marks a visit by relatives, remembering the deceased,” says John McAslan + Partners and MASS Design Group.
“The legacy of the Holocaust – or Shoah – is not just the elimination of nearly 6 million Jews; but the grievous loss of generations that never came to be – millions of stones yet to be placed.

9.Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects and David Morley Architects

“The UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre summarizes the Holocaust, the persecution and systematic mass murder against not only the Jews but also against other minorities, that took place during the Second World War,” says Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects and David Morley Architects.
“The Memorial is a composition of two arcs facing each other and a water pool. The first arc describes the Holocaust, the other describes how it was experienced in the UK.”

10.Studio Libeskind and Haptic Architects

“The Memorial communicates a shadow that has been cast forever on the history of civilization. Since there is no redemptive meaning in the Holocaust, visitors carry this shadow with them as they journey underground . . . This memorial is minimal and uncompromising in its message: that to forget the Holocaust is to imperil civilization,” says Studio Libeskind and Haptic Architects.
“Lest one forgets the horror, one will see it repeated.”