winning design unveiled of new montreal holocaust museum

a museum designed on the pillars of memory

The Montreal Holocaust Museum (MHM) reveals the design of its new downtown museum with architecture by KPMB Architects and Daoust Lestage Lizotte Stecker Architecture. Selected following an international architectural competition, the winning proposal is ‘based on the pillars of memory, education, and community.’ The building will introduce to Montreal multiple exhibition spaces, classrooms, an auditorium, a memorial garden, and a dedicated survivor testimony room. With construction beginning in the fall of 2023, the museum is expected to open in 2025.

images courtesy Montreal Holocaust Museum

a space for human rights education in montreal

The project marks the Montreal Holocaust Museum’s move from its current location in the neighborhood of Cote-des-Neiges. The design by KPMB Architects (see here) and Daoust Lestage Lizotte Stecker Architecture (see here) responds to ‘a growing demand for educational programs about the Holocaust, genocide, and human rights.’ The team comments that as society has recently seen ‘a rise of racism, anti-semitism, and discrimination,’ the new museum will seek to galvanize communities throughout Quebec and Canada to ‘fight all forms of hatred and persecution.’

Daniel Amar, Executive Director of the MHM comments: ‘We are delighted to share the designs of our new Museum which will be an important space of learning, action, and coming together. The brilliant design succeeded in creating a space of powerful architecture that remains respectful and sensitive to the difficult history of the Holocaust and its human rights legacy that will be transmitted within its walls.

‘While we eagerly await our opening on Blvd. St-Laurent, we invite everyone to get involved today and Give Voice to help support their new Montreal Holocaust Museum.’

The Museum’s fundraising campaign Give Voice has raised $85 million of the $90 million project with generous contributions from Heritage Canada ($20 million), the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec ($20 million), the City of Montreal ($1.5 million), the Azrieli Foundation ($15 million) and numerous private donors. The public is encouraged to contribute to the campaign and join their voices to the Museum’s.

the thirty-two projects received in the competition’s first stage can be viewed here