National Holocaust Monument | Proposed

[CongoJack]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I think you've misunderstood Tony Judt's views. He was a Jew (he passed in 2010) who was critical of the establishment of Israel solely as a religious Jewish state (he preferred a shared secular Israeli-Palestinian state). He was concerned that people are confusing criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, and that many in the US Government (and the Harper government) seem to to hold Israel above censure.The ulterior motives of these politicians can threaten to mar the solemnity and sincerity behind this type of monument, as expressed in this opinion.

From the words of Tony Judt: We should beware the excessive invocation of “anti-Semitism.” A younger generation in the United States, not to mention worldwide, is growing skeptical. “If criticism of the Israeli blockade of Gaza is potentially ‘anti-Semitic,’ why take seriously other instances of the prejudice?”

You are quite correct regarding his views on Israel. I was referring to the section in Postwar on Germany's turn towards holocaust memorializing in the 1980s and 1990s. It has been a couple of years since I read it, but I believe the gist was that the exit of former Nazis from prominent positions in society (mainly due to age) allowed for Germany to move from silent acceptance to intensive efforts to recognize the holocaust and WW2, but as the unique sins of the Nazi regime. The western world has basically followed suit: intense focus on the Nazis but little popular understanding of the long dark history of antisemitism.

[waterloowarrior]

Winning team:
Gail Lord, museum planner
Daniel Libeskind, architect
Edward Burtynsky, artist’
Claude Cormier, landscape architect
Doris Berger, Holocaust scholar

[ortelius]

http://www.lord.ca/Pages/nhm-project.php

[Harley613]

That's incredible...the portal to the Peace Tower is a very thoughtful design.

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Not my favourite of the designs proposed, but still interesting. It reminds me a bit of the Peacekeepers Monument.

However, I do find it slightly odd that we're doing a holocaust memorial. If anything is more tied to our history (and would be just as related and just as important to remember), it would be a monument to our turning away of the St. Louis and 907 Jews escaping Nazi Germany in 1939.

That way it would be holocaust related, but also relatable directly to us as Canadians while carrying the same "never again, never forget" mentality. Just my opinion.

[rocketphish]

Interesting, monuments are their specialty:

"Lord Cultural Resources is the world’s largest global professional practice dedicated to creating cultural capital having conducted over 2,000 cultural projects in over 50 countries on 6 continents. We collaborate with people and organizations to plan and manage cultural places, programs and resources that deliver excellence in the service of society."

from: http://www.lord.ca/Pages/nhm-project.php

[rocketphish]

Canada selects design for national Holocaust monument

JTA, May 12, 2014

A team that includes world-renowned architect Daniel Liebeskind has been chosen over five other finalists to create a national Holocaust monument in Ottawa.

The team was announced made Monday by Canadian Heritage Minister Shelly Glover, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Multiculturalism Minister Tim Uppal. Uppal had introduced the private member’s bill, the National Holocaust Monument Act, that led to the monument’s creation.

Scheduled for completion in the fall of 2015, the team’s design features a large gathering space for ceremonies, with room for 1,000 people, enclosed by six triangular, concrete segments to create the points of a star — reminiscent of the yellow stars Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust.

The winning team is led by Gail Dexter Lord, co-president of Toronto-based Lord Cultural Resources, which also consulted on the Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg and the 9/11 Museum in New York. Both his parents were Holocaust survivors.

Liebeskind’s buildings include the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen and many others. In 2003, he won the competition to be the master plan architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site.

In addition to Liebeskind, the team includes artist-photographer Edward Burtynsky, Quebec-based landscape architect Claude Cormier and University of Toronto Holocaust scholar Doris Bergen.

“The winning design is a fully integrated proposal in which architecture, landscape, art and interpretation communicate the hardship and suffering of victims while conveying a powerful message of humanity’s enduring strength and survival,” a government media release issued Monday said.

Once completed, Canada “will no longer be the only Allied nation without a national Holocaust monument,” noted the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. “In bearing witness to the Holocaust, the monument will be a compelling reminder of the dangers of unchecked evil and the enduring imperative to confront all manifestations of anti-Semitism and hatred.”

http://www.jewishjournal.com/world/a...caust_monument

[Radster]

And we have our answer, the Holocaust Memorial is not just a Jewish memorial. Very relieved to read that they included the other groups of Nazi-targeted people as well, and I have to admit, the design is striking. Afterall, Daniel Libeskind is known for striking designs. Lets hope this will motivate local developers to use his skills for an eye-catching building in the capital down the road.

"The Monument is conceived as an experiential environment comprised of six triangular, concrete volumes configured to create the points of a star. The star remains the visual symbol of the Holocaust – a symbol that millions of Jews were forced to wear by the Nazi’s to identify them as Jews, exclude them from humanity and mark them for extermination. The triangular spaces are representative of the badges the Nazi’s and their collaborators used to label homosexuals, Roma-Sinti, Jehovah’s Witnesses and political and religious prisoners for murder."

http://www.lord.ca/Pages/nhm-project.php

[Radster]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Canada selects design for national Holocaust monument

JTA, May 12, 2014

A team that includes world-renowned architect Daniel Liebeskind has been chosen over five other finalists to create a national Holocaust monument in Ottawa.

The team was announced made Monday by Canadian Heritage Minister Shelly Glover, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Multiculturalism Minister Tim Uppal. Uppal had introduced the private member’s bill, the National Holocaust Monument Act, that led to the monument’s creation.

Scheduled for completion in the fall of 2015, the team’s design features a large gathering space for ceremonies, with room for 1,000 people, enclosed by six triangular, concrete segments to create the points of a star — reminiscent of the yellow stars Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust.

The winning team is led by Gail Dexter Lord, co-president of Toronto-based Lord Cultural Resources, which also consulted on the Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg and the 9/11 Museum in New York. Both his parents were Holocaust survivors.

Liebeskind’s buildings include the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen and many others. In 2003, he won the competition to be the master plan architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site.

In addition to Liebeskind, the team includes artist-photographer Edward Burtynsky, Quebec-based landscape architect Claude Cormier and University of Toronto Holocaust scholar Doris Bergen.

“The winning design is a fully integrated proposal in which architecture, landscape, art and interpretation communicate the hardship and suffering of victims while conveying a powerful message of humanity’s enduring strength and survival,” a government media release issued Monday said.

Once completed, Canada “will no longer be the only Allied nation without a national Holocaust monument,” noted the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. “In bearing witness to the Holocaust, the monument will be a compelling reminder of the dangers of unchecked evil and the enduring imperative to confront all manifestations of anti-Semitism and hatred.”

http://www.jewishjournal.com/world/a...caust_monument

Ahh, don't people see the one-sided report here? Though I am not surprised to see this, its almost expected, afterall the report is from the Jewish Journal, so why on earth would they even care to mention that the Holocaust Monument is not just about Jews? Typical. And then people get offended at certain negative remarks regarding anything Jewish, and call them anti-semitic. For sure me writing this will be called anti-semitic! Ha, but all it is, is an observation of yet another example of how Jews consider the Holocaust and in many ways WWII, to be all about their suffering. Thankfully, this monument will not be just about them, but about others who perished in the concentration camps too, and so it will not only serve to educate people about about the Jewish deaths, but also about the other deaths such as homosexuals, Gypsies, Political prisoners, Intellectuals, etc.

[S-Man]

I'm not sure I want a daily reminder of the slaughter of millions that took place in another continent here.

Have you driven by the National War Memorial lately? Like, since 1939?

[S-Man]

Thankfully, this monument will not be just about them, but about others who perished in the concentration camps too, and so it will not only serve to educate people about about the Jewish deaths, but also about the other deaths such as homosexuals, Gypsies, Political prisoners, Intellectuals, etc.

I agree that it is a good thing that the full breadth of the Holocaust will be on display here, and frankly, I didn't think the monument was to be so...large and significant.

As for the first part of your post - try not to let the suffering of a group of people get under your skin too much. A Jewish person writing for a Jewish publication about Judaism is allowed to speak about religious persecution against his/her people.

We allow it in Canada, remember?

[McC]

Originally Posted by Harley613

That's incredible...the portal to the Peace Tower is a very thoughtful design.

wow.

[rocketphish]

National Holocaust Monument design unveiled

Alex Bozikovic
The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, May. 12 2014, 1:59 PM EDT
Last updated Monday, May. 12 2014, 2:35 PM EDT

The design of Canada’s National Holocaust Monument will be led by the architect associated with New York’s Ground Zero and Berlin’s Jewish Museum.

Daniel Libeskind has won a design competition for the Ottawa project, in combination with photographer Edward Burtynsky, landscape architect Claude Cormier and museum planners Lord Cultural Resources.

The decision was announced Monday in Ottawa by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages Shelly Glover at the site of the monument - a field across from the Canadian War Museum, on the LeBreton Flats about a kilometre from Parliament Hill.

The federal government announced the monument in April, 2013, as a permanent place to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and honour Canadian survivors; Canada currently has no such site. It will be overseen by the National Capital Commission. A fundraising council is aiming to raise $4.5-million for the construction of the project, with matching funds from the government of up to $4-million.

The plans for the project combine architecture, landscape and art. Visitors will take a “journey through a star” - a concrete structure that, viewed from above, resembles a six-pointed star, the symbol of Jewish identity. It consists of several triangular spaces; according to a statement from the design team, these are meant to evoke the triangular badges used to classify prisoners in concentration camps, including Jews, Roma, gay people, and mentally and physically disabled people.

"It’s very much designed as an experience - it’s not a monument that you just look at from afar, but it draws you in as a visitor,” explains Dov Goldstein, a principal consultant at Lord and the project’s coordinator.

Within the monument, original photographs by Burtynsky of Holocaust sites, death camps, killing fields and forests, will be embedded into concrete. And a landscape surrounding the monument, designed by Cormier, will include a forest of coniferous trees growing out of rocky ground, a nod to the forests of eastern Europe and a living symbol of how survivors and their children have changed Canada.

The project will be a significant piece of architecture and urban design in Ottawa, and notable because of the international reputations of all four players - especially Libeskind (who was born in Poland but lives in the U.S.) and the Canadian Burtynsky. They were brought together by Lord Cultural Resources, which organized what Goldstein calls “a multidisciplinary and multicultural team” for an integrated process including historian Doris Bergen.

Goldstein praises Libeskind’s “brilliant architecture and his sensitivity to the subject matter.” (Libeskind’s parents both survived the Holocaust and each lost most of their extended families.) His aesthetic touch is clear. The proposal's complex structure employs Libeskind’s trademark crystalline forms, which first appeared on his Jewish Museum in Berlin, completed in 1999. That museum building is a zigzagging and jagged form that is notoriously difficult to program. It employed architectural symbolism for the fate of Europe’s Jews and other victims of the Holocaust: It is a series of shards, pierced by voids, and visitors end up in a "Garden of Exile.”

Libeskind is also closely associated with the most significant memorial project of the past 20 years - Ground Zero in Manhattan, where he designed a master plan for the site of the 9/11 attacks that was capped with a 1776-foot-tall “Freedom Tower.” Libeskind saw these ideas embraced by the public in New York, but his role in the redevelopment project was reduced dramatically.

Libeskind's main project in Canada so far has been the Royal Ontario Museum’s Lee-Chin Crystal in Toronto, which employs similar forms - there, according to Libeskind, meant to evoke the museum’s collection of geological crystals.

The Ottawa monument is largely designed now, and will start construction this summer and with a planned opening in the fall of 2015. “It’s an important monument for all Canadians to understand about tolerance about human rights, racial hatred, bigotry, and anti-Semitism, and I think it’s an important signifier to remind Canadians of all that,” Goldstein says. "But it’s also a monument to the survivors - and it's important for Jews and for all Canadians for that reason, to commemorate, remember and to recognize human dignity."

Follow Alex Bozikovic on Twitter: @alexbozikovic

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/...ticle18613725/

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by S-Man

Have you driven by the National War Memorial lately? Like, since 1939?

There's a huge difference, the Canadian National War Memorial is about Canadians who died fighting in in the wars. No Canadians died in the Holocaust. Sure, there are Holocaust survivors who are now Canadian, but that does not make the Holocaust "Canadian" or "National"

At the very least, we need to get our semantics right, this should be called the "Canadian Memorial for [victims of] the Holocaust" not the "Canadian National Holocaust Memorial".

[jchamoun79]

Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix

However, I do find it slightly odd that we're doing a holocaust memorial. If anything is more tied to our history (and would be just as related and just as important to remember), it would be a monument to our turning away of the St. Louis and 907 Jews escaping Nazi Germany in 1939.

That way it would be holocaust related, but also relatable directly to us as Canadians while carrying the same "never again, never forget" mentality. Just my opinion.

We already have a commemorative monument to the victims of the MS St. Louis - The Wheel of Conscience, located at Pier 21 in Halifax, and also designed by Daniel Libeskind.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-s...iled-1.1032629

[citydwlr]

The design that didn't win: For anyone interested, Dezeen has posted up some further details about the David Adjaye/Ron Arad proposal along with the following walkthrough video:

Video Link

[McC]

Work is under way, they've basically dug the entire site down 1-2 metres deep to remove the old soil.

[rocketphish]

Small ceremony' planned at unfinished Holocaust Monument next August

Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: September 15, 2014, Last Updated: September 15, 2014 6:49 PM EDT



The new National Holocaust Monument at the corner of Booth and Wellington streets in Ottawa won’t be completed until December 2015 and won’t officially open until May 4, 2016.

But that won’t stop federal politicians from donning hard hats and work boots for a “small ceremony” at the unfinished site next August.

References to the planned August ceremony appear in a document posted recently on the federal government’s tendering website.

The document, which describes the monument as a “priority commemoration project for the Government of Canada”, invites companies that wish to bid on the project’s estimated $6-million construction contract to submit their qualifications by Oct. 9.

It says construction is expected to begin next March, adding: “The aim is to complete the monument in December 2015 in advance of a ceremony to be held on May 4, 2016.”

However, part of the monument — including a “contemplation space” and eternal flame — must be completed shortly before a “small ceremony” scheduled for next August, the NCC document advises.

To accommodate the ceremony, it says construction activity “would need to stop briefly. Attendees would be issued hard hats and boots,” it says, and plywood sheets could be temporarily installed for access to the site.

In an interview, Rabbi Daniel Friedman, chair of the National Holocaust Monument Development Council, said the first lighting of the eternal flame will occur at the August ceremony.

He said May 4, 2016, was chosen for the later official opening because it coincides with Yom HaShoah, the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day.

In an email, officials at Canadian Heritage said it is “common practice to organize more than one ceremony before officially unveiling a monument.”

For example, the department organized a site dedication ceremony this past June for the 1812 Monument that will be unveiled later this fall.

“From the start of this project, the official inauguration of the main elements of the National Holocaust Monument has been scheduled for late summer 2015,” the email said.

The total cost of the monument is $8.5 million, including construction, the design competition, marketing and other expenses, said Friedman. When it is finished, the NCC will take ownership and will be responsible for maintenance.

The development council, created in 2011 to raise money for the monument, has brought in just over $4 million of its $4.5 million objective, Friedman said. The federal government has promised to match donations to a maximum of $4 million.

When the government unveiled the winning design in May, Tim Uppal, a minister of state whose private member’s bill in 2010 led to the memorial’s approval, said he hoped the new landmark would be finished by the fall of 2015.

But that timetable was evidently too optimistic. The NCC has begun to remove contaminated soil from the site. When that is completed later this fall, the monument site will be excavated down to bedrock.

The NCC document fleshes out some of the details of the monument’s design by an all-star team led by Toronto’s Gail Lord that includes architect Daniel Libeskind, photographer Edward Burtynsky, landscape architect Claude Cormier and historical adviser Doris Bergen.

The monument consists of six concrete and metal mesh triangular walls arrayed in the form of a Star of David. Six large landscape photos will be installed on the concrete walls, one of which will be embedded directly into the concrete.

Visitors will reach the monument’s central gathering space through an entrance ramp on the northwest corner of the site.

From there, they will be able to see the contemplation space with 14-metre-high walls, featuring the eternal flame; another space that will contain interpretative exhibit panels, a 130-square-metre “memento” area, and an upper plaza, reached via the “Stairs of Hope.”

dbutler@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/ButlerDon

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-...nt-next-august

[Urbanarchit]

*

[Kitchissippi]

But that won’t stop federal politicians from donning hard hats and work boots for a “small ceremony” at the unfinished site next August.

Probably because there's an election in October when the Cons might be turfed out and they just want a photo op and credits before that happens.