In April 2024, the Warren J. Kennedy Association, owner of the future museum, launched a design competition.
The jury, which met on June 18, selected 3 teams from 49 applications. They were invited to present an architectural project in the form of a sketch, and a scenographic project illustrated by a 1′ film showing the scenographic ambience of the future museum.
TRACKS Architects was chosen by the jury, which met on November 7. At the end of January, an architectural and landscaping sketch was presented to the jury, following some recommendations.
After 5 years of reflection, feasibility studies, programming studies, meetings with public contributors and a few patrons, the machine has been set in motion! The preliminary work of digitizing and inventorying existing archives, and the search for new ones in archive centers in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Poland and France, continues to feed the work of the scenographers.
The story within the story…
As the collections are enriched by donations from prisoners’ families, unexpected discoveries at sales sites, and memories of the camp unearthed by residents of neighboring villages, the story comes to life; it is embodied in poignant accounts by young children aged 12 – Hitler Youth – captured at the end of the conflict, in the prisoners’ writings, but also in their cartoons, paintings, caricatures of their fellow prisoners, their jailers, and drawings of their living conditions.
And our project management team draws on all these archives, thinking about the message to be conveyed to future German, American and French visitors, and to young German and French schoolchildren…
The subject is fascinating and always topical: how to emerge from a conflict that has ravaged the world? How do you rebuild your life, how do you build Europe?
