October 5 2020

Hoskins Architects have won a design competition to transform a former outpost of the Neuengamme concentration camp in Wolfsburg, Germany, into a memorial.

Working in partnership with landscape architects guba+sgard and exhibition designers Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the practice will develop the remnants of a former prison barracks as a place for remembrance and contemplation.

In a press statement, Hoskins Architects wrote: "Our approach seeks to take an observational position, highlighting the tensions between silence and liveliness (the forest and residential area), processing and forgetting, coercion and self-determination. From an external viewpoint and with historical distance, we ask ourselves how we feel about the present and future handling of the culture of remembrance.

"Positioned between a supermarket and a petrol station, the new centre of remembrance and learning is conceived as a "Stolperstein" or stumbling block and a marker of its time. At the place where an electric fence once bordered the camp, a display of memories tells the stories of the individual inmates. The design expands the site via a raised timber walkway along the historic edge of the neighbouring forest. This path defines the measurements of the former camp, making its dimensions tangible via a transverse and a longitudinal axis and allowing the visitor to engage with that which is no longer visible."

Located in the district of Laagberg the competition was won by the practices Berlin studio, recently responsible for delivering Vienna's World Museum. 

1 Comment

#1 Posted by Andy on 5 Oct 2020 at 19:00 PM

Very nice. A very restrained, well controlled piece of design appropriate for its purpose.

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