International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Bologna Shoah Memorial by SET Architects – Photo by Simone Bossi.
Architecture – January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an important date to remember the crimes of the Nazi regime, which mass tortured and murdered over six million Jews before and during World War II. An opportunity to reflect on our societies and commit to shaping a humane future. Architecture can play an essential role in strengthening positive values, as well as empowering awareness of human rights to fight negationism, war, and dangerous far-right ideologies.
Check these amazing architectural museums and memorials standing up to injustice and discrimination!
Berlin Holocaust Memorial
Berlin Holocaust Memorial – Photo by Wynand van Poortvliet.
Designed by Peter Eisenman and Buro Happold, and inaugurated in 2005, Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe consists of a 19,000-square-metre site by the Brandenburg Gate covered with 2,711 concrete slabs of different heights, arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. While walking between the columns and the labyrinthine corridors, visitors may experience a brief moment of disorientation, which should open up space for discussion. Beneath the memorial is the Information Centre, which documents the crimes of the Nazi era in themed rooms.
Photo via Mely1670.
“This project manifests the instability inherent in what seems to be a system, here a rational grid, and its potential for dissolution in time. It suggests that when a supposedly rational and ordered system grows too large and out of proportion to its intended purpose, it loses touch with human reason. It then begins to reveal the innate disturbances and potential for chaos in all systems of apparent order.” Say at Eisenman Architects.
Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
Courtesy of Yad Vashem.
Yad Vashem – A memorial and a name in Hebrew – is Jerusalem’s New Holocaust History Museum, designed by world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie. The museum is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered, honouring their fight against the Nazis as well as the people who selflessly aided them. The architecture consists of s concrete prism-like triangular structure penetrating Mount Herzl – Mount of Remembrance – from one side to the other, with both ends dramatically cantilevering into the open air.
Courtesy of Yad Vashem.
The triangular form of the structure was chosen to support the pressure of the earth above the prism while bringing in daylight from above through a 200-meter-long glass skylight. The skylight allows gleams of daylight to contrast with darker areas required for multimedia presentations. At Yad Vashem’s core is The Hall of Names, a conical structure extending 33 feet upward, housing the personal records of all known victims of the Holocaust.
National Holocaust Monument, Ottawa
Photo Sean Marshall.
The National Holocaust Monument in the Canadian capital honors and commemorates the victims of the Holocaust and recognize Canadian survivors. Designed by Daniel Libeskind, the cast-in-place, exposed concrete Monument is conceived as an experiential environment comprised of six triangular concrete volumes configured to create the points of a star. Millions of Jews were forced to wear the star symbol so that Nazis could identify them as Jews, exclude them from humanity and mark them for extermination.
Courtesy of Daniel Liebeskind Architects.
The triangular spaces are representative of the badges used to label homosexuals, Roma-Sinti, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and political and religious prisoners for murder.
“The Monument is an experience that combines architecture, art, landscape, and scholarship in ways that create an-ever changing engagement with one of the darkest chapters of human history while conveying a powerful message of humanity’s enduring strength and survival.” Explained Daniel Libeskind.
Bologna Shoah Memorial
Photo via IG by @simonebossiphotographer. Follow @setarchitects.
Two symmetrical steel blocks, each measuring ten by 10 metres, create a narrowing path at the centre of an empty square in the Italian city of Bologna. The Shoah Memorial by Rome-based office SET Architects empathises the “feeling of oppression” experienced by Holocaust victims. Made in Corten steel, the blocks are set to rust over time “to display the vestiges of time,” explained the architects.
Photo via IG by @simonebossiphotographer. Follow @setarchitects.
Externally it looks like a complete and compact volume, while the inside is emptied; the Cor-Ten steel interlocked plates form a grid that, in an obsessive repetition, recalls the geometry of the beds of the concentration camp dorms. A paving of gravel characterizes the passage between the two blocks. As it runs through it, it narrows, causing the visitor a state of estrangement that leads him to a personal and intimate reflection on the theme of the Holocaust.
Milan’s Shoah Memorial
Memoriale della Shoah by Morpurgo De Curtis Architetti Associati in Milano – Photo by Andrea Martiradonna.
Milan’s Shoah Memorial is located deep within the city’s Central Station on a sublevel below the main tracks. Here, thousands of Jews and political opponents were loaded onto livestock cars for a one-way journey to extermination camps. The memorial and exhibition centre narrates the stories of those unfortunate passengers. Their stories contrast with the Fascist-imbued architecture of the Stazione Centrale, a 1940’s building with Art Deco and Neoclassic elements.
Holocaust Memorial of Names
Photo by Kees Hummel.
In 2021, Studio Libeskind also completed Amsterdam’s Holocaust Memorial of Names commemorating the 102,000 Dutch victims, mostly Jews, Sinti, and Roma people, who were killed by the Nazis during the second world war and had no known graves. Their names are inscribed on bricks composing a labyrinth of two-meter-high walls. A further 1,000 extra bricks were left blank to memorialise unknown people.
Photo by Kees Hummel.
Each of the four volumes is crafted from mirror-finished stainless steel that hovers above the walls. The 1,550 square meter memorial incorporates four volumes that represent the letters in the Hebrew word לזכר, meaning In Memory of.
Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum
Photo by Jason O’Rear, courtesy of Omniplan.
Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum pays tribute to the strength of those who have stood up to injustice. “While no building can ever represent the inhumane injustices that occurred during the Holocaust, it can certainly be a vessel for the meaningful presentation of the repercussions, human experiences, and realities thereof to ultimately influence impactful societal change.” Says Texas architecture studio Omniplan.
Photo by Jason O’Rear, courtesy of Omniplan.
The architects used dark iron spot bricks to add a solemn feel to the first floors of the U-shaped building. The upper levels are clad with a golden-red crown made from copper panels.
Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial, Uklraine
Photo via IG – Follow @babynyar.
The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Drobytsky Yar, Ukraine, rose where 20 000 victims of the Holocaust were shot and killed during World War II. The Menorah-shaped monument was smashed by Russian missiles last year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented: “The invaders have committed one more crime against history, against historical justice. Near Kharkiv, the Russian forces, in their branded inhumane style, have ‘de-Nazified’ the Holocaust memorial in Drobytsky Yar.”
Yad Vashem museum by Moshe Safdie – Courtesy of Yad Vashem.
