Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial

Yad Vashem is an immensely famous holocaust memorial site founded in 1953, which pays respect to the six million Jews who lost their while simultaneously honouring the non-Jews who risked their lives to keep Jews safe (righteous among the nations) in what was the most anti-Semitic event in our history. Yad Vashem is situated on the western slope of Mount Herzl on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem

1) Motive (who designed/ built it and WHY?)
Moshe Safdie and associates were the intelligent architects behind Yad Vashem. Yad Vashem has four main motives/aims which include aspect such as; education, research and documentation, and commemoration.

2) Content
Yad Vashem has a unique design from all the other memorials. The design is physically
and psychologically intimidating. The most iconic area in the memorial is the wall of names room, which consists of a giant dome where there are testimonies and photographs.

The museum itself is shaped like a triangular prism and has a 200-metre-long skylight. The sloping walls of the prism serve to create the feeling of oppression. Visitors are required to follow a preset route from the main hall to a series of underground galleries.

The floor is downward sloping to remind us of the reality of Auschwitz and the downward slope that life took. People were dehumanized, reduced to bones and ashes to lie eventually in the earth in death.

3) Perspective

Yad Vashem is intended to influence the way we view the holocaust today because it makes us realise how important it is to educate our future, pay respect and perpetuate memory. I do believe that the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial is cleverly designed to remind us that this completely horrific event did happen and to make sure that something of this magnitude doesn’t happen again. Aspects such as the Hall of Names (a room with a giant dome with the testimonies and photos), Hall of Remembrance (a room with names of concentration camps and Nazi killing sites all over Europe) and The Children’s Memorial (an underground room with tiny candles to represent the 1,500,000 children who were murdered), all evoke feelings of deep emotional sadness and despair which is intended to influence way we view the holocaust in the present.

Memorial 2: Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe (Berlin)

1) Origin
Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe (which is also known as the Holocaust Memorial) is a memorial to the Jewish holocaust sufferers designed by architect Peter Eisenman.
The 25 million euro construction effort was only finished in December 2004 but it only opened almost halfway through the year of 2005. It is located one block south of the Brandenburg Gate, one of Germany’s most popular landmarks and one of the worlds most recognised monuments.

2) Motive
Holocaust Memorial Berlin was devised by famous architect Peter Eisenman and innovative engineer by the name of Buro Happold. The memorial came about as a non-Jewish German television journalist and a non-Jewish historian (named Lea Rosh and Eberhard Jäckel) first started pushing a case for Germany to pay their respects to the six million Jews massacred in the holocaust. In the year of 1989 Rosh founded a campaign to support its construction and collect donations going towards it and due to the ongoing support of the initiative, the German Federal Parliament (in 1999) decided to build the memorial.

3)
Content

The memorial structure consists of varying sizes and heights of concrete slabs (stelae), found in a sloping field in a grid-like pattern, organized in rows. Some of them go north to south and others from east to west. 2711 rectangular boxes make up this monument. There are alleys between uneven grounds.

The result of his design is a confusing grid.
Although Eisenman said the design had no symbolic significance he did want it to represent what happens when a system has a breakdown with its human element. There are various interpretations, it is most frequently compared to a graveyard of unmarked graves just like the unknown or unmarked pits from the holocaust. The Eisenman design resulted from a competition launched in 1997 whereby architects were invited to submit proposals. Peter Eisenman and artist Richard Serra collaborated and won. Serra resigned from the design team. The original design envisaged 4000 stone pillars of varying heights in a labyrinth spanning over 180,00 square feet. In 1999 the number of pillars was reduced and a building called the house of remembrance was added. It contained an information center and an exhibition space.

From an architectural point of view, the information centers’ most prominent feature is the sunken panels in the concrete ceiling. The memorials design purpose is to evoke feelings of uneasiness and capture the viewers.

4) Perspective

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe influences the way we view the holocaust today because it makes us understand the scale of brutality and inhumanity that the Jews had to endure during the holocaust. It was in these countries where these acts
occurred.