In June 2025, the museum reaches a new milestone: from the Avant-Projet Sommaire (APS) to the Avant-Projet Définitif (APD).
According to the dictionary, we’ve gone from a “summary” project (concise, quick, summary, schematic) to a “definitive” project (final, firm, fixed, ultimate). There’s still a long way to go, but the definitive preliminary project takes us into the details and leads to the submission of the building permit.
THE HIVE IS ON THE MOVE
While architects and design offices work on the technical aspects following the various studies undertaken over the last few months – geotechnical studies of the soil, topographical surveys, water law relating to rainwater run-off and recovery, fire reserves, gauges for car parking, proposals for the removal and parking of coaches, stabilization and levelling of the ground, etc. – the exteriors are taking shape: structuring of hedges, choice of plants, permeable surface coverings.
The scenographers, for their part, work on the selection of archives, guided by the scientific committee, and ensure the right balance between furniture, showcases, projections, labels, not forgetting optimal circulation in the museum. The ultimate goal is to make the permanent exhibition as easy to understand as possible.
© TRACKS architects
AN INCOMPRESSIBLE BUDGET
And from all this emerges a more precise budget, calculated on reality and not on ratios; a budget that must fit within an incompressible envelope. We all too often forget just how central the financial dimension is for a museum institution too.
We must always bear in mind that there is a public in front of us, and more and more of them: young schoolchildren, adults, visually or hearing impaired visitors, or visitors with reduced mobility. All of them, however, must leave the museum having learned something, having discovered a page of history, having encountered, along the way, a story, images, objects presented, analyzed, studied, from different points of view.
UBIQUITOUS AESTHETICS
And then there’s aesthetics, which we strive to achieve at every level, despite the austerity of the subject matter, the “economy of the few” that was also the basis of the world of military prison camps and the post-war period in Europe at the time: choice of materials – wood, site concrete, glass, metal – to create atmosphere; choice of colors for better comparison; choice of interior and exterior lighting to feel good; choice of graphics to understand quickly; choice of sound ambiences to be immersed in another world.
Museum of Captivity © TRACKS architects
And always the presence of nature, of the landscape, which regularly enters the museum through the glass, through the trees, through the sky, synonymous with freedom! That’s why the memorial garden is such an integral part of the project.
In August 2025, TRACKS Architects, our project manager, submitted the application for planning permission. The project will take around 6 months to be examined by the relevant authorities (urban planning and fire and emergency services).
