Memorial: The Latest Architecture and News

The Government of the United Kingdom and competition organizer Malcolm Reading Consultants have announced the ten architect teams selected to envision designs for the new National Memorial to the Holocaust, to be located next to the UK Parliament. Designs will encompass a “striking” new National Memorial in Victoria Gardens, as well as a possible below ground Learning Center.

The 10 shortlisted teams were selected from nearly 100 entries from teams across the globe by a jury made up of notable figures in British culture, religion and architecture, including Director of Stanton Williams Architects, Paul Williams; former Serpentine Galleries Director Dame Julia Peyton-Jones; and National September 11 Memorial and Museum Director, Alice M Greenwald.

The UK Government and Malcolm Reading Consultants have announced today an international competition for the design of a new National Memorial to commemorate the events of the Holocaust.

To be located next to Parliament in Victoria Tower Gardens in London, the new national landmark will "demonstrate the UK’s commitment to honouring the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, providing a place for quiet reflection as well as large-scale national commemorations." The competition brief also calls for the design of a potential below-ground learning center to accompany the memorial, which would provide visitors with the opportunity to learn more about the history of the Holocaust and the context of the memorial itself.

Zeller & Moye, working alongside artist Albert Weis, have been selected to design the new Martin Luther Memorial in Berlin. The competition, initiated by the Protestant Church of Berlin and the Berlin City Administration, asked entrants to design a memorial to Luther in central Berlin at the former Neuer Markt next to the St. Marienkirche—in the same location as a previous memorial to Martin Luther that was constructed in 1895 and destroyed in the Second World War. The brief also required designers to incorporate the existing statue of Martin Luther that survived from the earlier memorial.

In response to this brief, Zeller & Moye has envisaged a memorial based on the mirroring of the 1895 memorial: a negative form of the original plinth is carved into the ground in medium-gray concrete, while the statue of Luther is joined by a second, slightly abstracted replica, cast in aluminium with a mirrored finish.

On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake and tsunami hit the coast of Japan at Sendai, damaging the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and taking over 10,000 lives. Over the past three years, only temporary memorial observances have been utilized to honor these victims in Sendai. To address this deficiency, MIT graduate student Beomki Lee has created a concept design for an innovative new memorial space called [ME]morial.

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