heneghan peng architects and Sven Anderson

We are designing the Memorial – Learning Centre so that we never forget the Holocaust.

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.

Visitors descend from the Gardens through a series of thresholds and passages, encountering individual voices as they form a collective, of those who speak of past horrors and the grave risk of authoritarianism and barbarism returning today.

Rooted in British soil, these witnesses tell of their refuge and lives in freedom. The Memorial courtyard – the ‘ear’ – is focussed upwards to Victoria Tower, its view reminds the visitor of the democratic promise of Britain’s Parliament, its people and traditions. With the ascent to the Tower comes a unifying sense of purpose in the value of free, tolerant societies and a collective desire to defend its principles.

We build to remember.