Unveiled: 10 emotive designs hoping to be UK’s Shoah memorial
Downing Street this week announced its shortlist of top architects from around the world vying to deliver the nation’s new Holocaust memorial
These are the 10 powerfully evocative designs being considered for the new national Holocaust memorial and learning centre next to the Houses of Parliament.
The Holocaust Memorial Foundation this week revealed the blueprints, produced by some of the world’s top architects and artists, for an iconic facility to be erected beneath a new national memorial in Westminster.
After a competition including 92 teams from 26 countries around the world, an exhibition of the finalists’ concepts was held in Downing Street last week, with the winner announced this summer.
The facility, in Victoria Tower Gardens, will include testimony from British survivors and liberators and were key proposals of David Cameron’s Holocaust Commission. He revealed the site of the memorial in January.
Sir Peter Bazalgette, chair of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation tasked by the government to deliver the memorial, said: “This important new memorial will honour victims and survivors of Nazi persecution, educate future generations about the dangers of where prejudice and hatred can lead and serve as a powerful statement of our values as a nation.”
Prime Minister Theresa May said: “There will be much debate and discussion in the consultation over the next few months – and I encourage you all to get involved. But one thing is certain. I will see to it that Britain will have that national memorial and education centre – standing proudly and permanently as a testa- ment to our values right next to Parliament.”
She added that the centre would include the testimony of Britain’s Shoah survivors “so their voices will live on long after we are all gone”.
Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said: “With such an exceptional shortlist I’ve no doubt the new memorial will stand as a fitting tribute.”
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust chief executive Olivia Marks-Woldman said: “This will be an exciting opportunity to create a memorial of lasting significance to Britain and to honour the memories of so many.”
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- Foster + Partners-Michal Rovner (UK) ‘Projected images of an endless procession of human figures resonate with exodus or human text that seems to go on forever like the unspoken testimonies’
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- Diamond Schmitt Architects (Canada) – ‘The subtlety of the design of the UK Holocaust Memorial gradually reveals the power of the opposing forces that created the descent into a horror of hitherto unimaginable scale’
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- Caruso St John Architects, Marcus Taylor and Rachel Whiteread (UK) – ‘The sculpture brings natural light into the largest and most memorable of these spaces – the “Hall of voices” – where visitors will hear first hand testimony of Holocaust survivors”
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- Architects Lahdelma & Mahlam (Finland) and David Morley Architects – ‘The structures extending from the Memorial into the Learning Centre together ‘
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- Anish Kapoor and Zaha Hadid architects proposal is for the National Holocaust Memorial
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- One of the proposed memorials for the Holocaust memorial, by US firm Allied Works
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- Adjaye Associates- (UK) – ‘Our proposal aims to reveal these layers not through a static symbol commemorating the past, but through an organic living monument that evolved over time, capable of both affecting and being affected by its users ‘
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- Studio Libeskind (US) ‘The Memorial communities a shadow that has been cast forever on the history if civilisation. Visitors carry this shadow with them as they journey underground’
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- John McAslan + Partmers and Mass Design Group (UK) ‘The act of taking a stone symbolises our individual and collective commitment to remembrance. This is our Memorial proposal. Six million stones placed at, and then taken from, the centre of London’.
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- Heneghan Peng (Republic of Ireland) ‘The Memorial is an ear that connects visitors with the voices and testimonies of those who experienced the Holocaust.’
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