Ten teams advance to stage two in Kiev design competition

Ten architectural bureaus from seven countries have been selected to take part in the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre (BYHMC) competition, launched to find a suitable design for a reflective and commemorative space to honour victims of the 1941 massacre at the Babyn Yar ravine near Kiev. In addition to a memorial park, the centre will also include facilities that will enable it to act as a platform for research, education and public discourse.

The list of selected participants is as follows:
   ◦    KAAN Architecten, Netherlands
   ◦    BURØ architects, Ukraine
   ◦    Diller Scofidio + Renfro, USA
   ◦    Eisenman Architects, USA
   ◦    Dorte Mandrup A/S, Denmark
   ◦    merz merz gmbh & co. kg, Germany
   ◦    querkraft architekten zt gmbh, Austria
   ◦    RICHTER MUSIKOWSKI Architecten PartGmbB, Germany
   ◦    STUDIO ODILE DECQ, France
   ◦    Wolfgang Tschapeller ZT-GmbH, Austria 

At the press conference held by the BYHMC to announce the results, the jury stressed the importance of the international appeal of the contest, which attracted 165 applications from 36 countries. Oleksandr Svystunov, chief architect of Kyiv and jury member, said: “We are lucky that under this competition, we managed to bring together professionals on the subject from around the world. There have been no such projects in Ukraine in my tens of years of experience...It takes decades for many countries to prepare to have such memorials. We have a unique opportunity to acquire the experience, the knowledge and emotion that exists in the world today in the context of such projects.”  Fellow jury member Rainer Mahlamäki, architect of the Polin museum in Warsaw, later commented: “Not only do museums tell history. People come to visit museums to feel emotions. In that sense, the Holocaust Memorial Centre plays a very important role for the society, the country and the world.” 

Following the stage one results due in April, four to six participants will go on to the second phase, with the final winner announced at the end of July.

Lucy Nordberg
TenderStream Head of Research

This competition was first published by TenderStream on 21.12.2018 here

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