Terezín Ghetto Museum

Terezín, a baroque town built as a fortress, a witness of historical events that cannot be forgotten. A fortress with an orthogonal order of blocks and park areas, tightly surrounded by a wrapped star-shaped fortification. A fascinating plan and situation. In the middle is the Ghetto Museum as a witness to past lives and tragedies, but also to courage and hope. It is a place not only of remembrance and memory, but also, newly, of contemporary life and the direction and lessons of history. In the design, the former school itself becomes an exhibit and is complemented by a new functional design, re-emphasizing the significant values and challenges, as well as the numbers of visitors to the building. The innocent Moonscape image by Terezin's young prisoner Peter Ginz, symbolizing hope out of a hopeless situation and perspective, became the inspiration for our design. A transformation of place, an image of hope and light. Tower of Light is a space of light, a clear and expressive expression of the theme and operational requirements. It points upwards, towards the sky, towards light, towards hope. It offers silence, a space for remembrance and a space for perception and meditation on the sanctity of life itself and the strength and fragility of humanistic ideas. This importance of hope and light is, in an ontological sense, the basis of the design for the Terezín Ghetto Museum. Tower of Light as a beacon of hope shining into the darkness among the surrounding houses. Hope for a better world. It is a place immersion - perception of emotions, immersion, immersion in the atmosphere or theme of the museum.

The new Tower of Light building is inserted between the repaired and reconstructed historical buildings of the Ghetto Museum." Its design was inspired by the iconic drawing "The Moonscape of Terezín Prisoner-boy Peter Ginz". At the top of the tower is a skylight bringing light into the interior. The design respects the historic structures of the existing buildings. The new building has a proposed steel structure sheathed with copper templates. The extension is not dominant in distant views and adds very sensitively to the historic context of the site. The inserted building links the different parts of the operation into a single unit. The result, both operationally and architecturally, is a complex and harmonious new museum complex. The car park is rated by the committee as a high quality public space, as is the design and layout of the information centre. The commission rates it as a high quality space for doubt that is separated from car traffic. Jirasek Gardens is part of several public spaces that have a clear hierarchy and function. The Commission positively evaluates the functions assigned to the unified public spaces, such as the artistic interventions in Jirásek Gardens, the museum garden of tranquillity, and the enclosed Terezín Children's Park.

In the design we support and develop the qualities present in the site and buildings. We restore meaning and beauty where it has been lost over time under the weight of matter and words. We add only what is absolutely necessary. We preserve and emphasize the entrance to the Museum. By removing the addition between the former school and gymnasium buildings, we are changing the space between the two structures. By exposing the façade of the former gymnasium and returning windows to the areas that were bricked up, we are restoring the essential that was built on the site. We are making the adjacent Museum space more organized. We are adding herb beds instead of shrubs to the Terezin Children's Park as a reminder of the garden's purpose during the ghetto. In the interior of the buildings, we are following the original layout. We consciously work with symmetry. We divide the exhibition into two parts. We work with fundamentally different lighting conditions. Daytime light in the former classrooms contrasts with the darkened space of the attic. This creates a whole range of display possibilities. The basic element of the exhibition is the table in many variations. The work with multiplicity is the over theme.

The concept of the design and the overall approach to the theme is very strong, the word multiplicity resonates here, which is contained in the chosen exhibition principle, but this word can also be replaced by the word austerity. This carries both the approach to the former schoolhouse itself, but ultimately also to the exhibition. The main entrance to the Museum is supported by wheelchair ramps. The front of the Museum is lightly stretched, the elegant and simple arrangement of the Jirásek Gardens, as well as the clearing of the trees on the front façade, support the overall feel of the main entrance to the Museum. The exhibition tables, which represent school desks and on which multiplicity is presented, did not convince part of the jury of their flexibility to be used for such a variety of museum exhibits. In the former gymnasium building, the rational approach of relocating the cinema to a non-original part of the building with no windows helped operationally. On the other hand, in the space under the historic roof, the bricked-up windows were demolished and their sills pulled down to the ground. This gave the Museum a generous space for short-term exhibitions, which is connected to the Terezín Children's Garden. The return of the herb beds to this park can be seen as a reminder of the original purpose. All the interventions, additions or new elements support each other and link into one harmonious whole. In contrast, the design of the car park area is not considered by the jury to be very successful. The inspiration of the motor park may seem understandable, but the car park itself would not necessarily be just a place for people to run their quick errands. On the contrary, demarcating the boundaries by means of a wall with residence stairs can be an element that makes the necessary stay in the car park more pleasant.

The Ghetto Museum should be a celebration of life, not death. It should focus on health, not decay. It should bring into its immediate surroundings a positive space for the future, not just the disheartening past. We propose that this memory institution should elaborate and commemorate its themes in a modern and attractive interpretive and polyemotional way. Only such an institution, in our view, makes sense to build in the contemporary world. We focus on human stories. On the desire to survive and the strength to live even in difficult circumstances. We follow the human journey and the main leitmotif on this journey is the gate. The gate as a dividing line between two worlds - freedom and unfreedom, truth and lies, childhood and adulthood, beginning and end. Programmatically, we work with three zones. The main zone is the historical building with an exhibition on three floors. It functions as a loaded box that holds a series of of heavy emotions. It alternates between narrative, immersive and physical elements. The second zone - the empty zone The third zone is the interface between the museum and the city.

The design is dominated by a distinctive and spectacular exhibition solution. The visitor is literally surrounded and guided by the exhibition. It is a presentation method that can be very suggestive, but it also has limitations, for example in the presentation of various museum artefacts. In the jury's opinion, the very appearance of the exhibition as an intermedia show is not suitable. The former school building itself has been cleaned and the internal layout opened up. The newly designed additions are clearly recognizable and confirm the qualities of the original. However, the quality of the architectural design itself does not keep pace with the strength of the exhibition. The jury does not consider the layout and operational relationships in the building to be the best possible, seeing a number of points of conflict. The jury considers the design of the parking area, including the facilities, to be of very high quality. It appreciates the effort not to leave the parking area a blank space and to work with it as a horizontal image formed by the composition of the paving stones. The background building is then formed by a simple abstract shiny metal block laid at the western edge of the car park. This is a clear architectural gesture that complements the 'entrance' space of the Memorial well. The design of Jirásek Gardens is, according to the commission, schematic and based on the effect of one season.

The concept of the reconstruction of the Ghetto Museum is based on the idea of a synthesis of a house - a memorial. The key to this kind of memory institution is the use of places and buildings where tragic historical events took place to reconstruct these events in the minds of visitors in a comprehensive way, especially for the younger ones, to enable them to imagine that similar events could easily happen within the experience of our comfortable European world as we are lucky enough to have experienced it so far.

The design works with the concept of the building, which is based on the idea of synthesis of the house and the monument. The original entrance and windows of the existing school building are blinded and the surfaces are unified. The building is thus transformed into a kind of monumental sculpture of the original house. The monumentality of the casting is emphasized by the black gravel that lines the courtyard and the four tower trees in front of the entrance. But the concept is not followed consistently. The gymnasium building, on the other hand, opens out to both sides as much as possible. The new entrance to the museum is relocated to the area of the hall between the school and the gymnasium. An unconvincing glass entrance is proposed to solve the entrance and the layout of the two buildings. The passage through the exhibition is linear. No natural lighting is used in the exhibition space. The design does not reflect the recommendation to consider the design of the exhibition for viewing by larger groups. The author's knowledge of the subject is evident from the design due to his careful research. However, the resulting design seems to be more of a mixture of different approaches to the subject, but lacks a unifying line or theme. It is this that will make it a unique proposal for Terezín. The car park solution is well designed with a very high added value in the form of a tree, which makes an uninviting space into a quality environment, even if it is empty and abandoned. The facilities building is also of high quality, working with the green roof and quality layout. The proposal deals with the overall design of Jirásek Gardens, not limited to the area under consideration. The jury appreciates this approach.

The proposal consists of several interrelated tasks, spatial and programmatic interventions, within the Terezín Memorial. In addition to the design of the new exhibition, it enhances the visitor experience and expands the facilities of the Terezín Ghetto Museum. It addresses issues of access to the building, as well as its internal reorganization, including the transformation of the 1970s addition into a new entrance space. It also discusses the adjacent public spaces and complements the now absent entrance forecourt. It confirms the present-day character of Jirásek Gardens, and the Park of Terezín Children is understood as a publicly accessible outdoor part of the museum's exposition. The proposal also includes the reorganisation of the existing car park and the conversion of the adjacent buildings into an infopoint with facilities for visitors. The design is guided by the desire to achieve spatial generosity, dignity, rational organisation and economic efficiency.

The design treats the historic school building as a monument, unifying the colour and texture of the façade and enclosing most of the window openings to elevate it. This approach seems underdeveloped given the lack of detail in the 'casting' of the windows and is rather inappropriate in the context of the many nearby bricked up vacant buildings. In their design, the authors change the position of the main entrance in the form of a new airy extension that conveniently connects the two designed buildings. However, the entrance area is not adequately designed (among other things, from the point of view of safety). The spatial and layout solution corresponds to the possibilities of the building and creates functional spaces. We do not consider the access to the attic floor by a service fire staircase to be adequate. The exhibition is designed as a system, intended to be designed in more detail in close collaboration with the curators - although it allows for various forms of presentation, it appears somewhat monotonous. We perceive positively the revitalization of the Terezín Children's Park. The form of the proposed bistro by the car park is very schematic, although spatially functional. The car park, although partially supplemented with grassed paving stones, looks like an excessively large, disjointed area reminiscent of the current dismal state. We perceive the placement of the bus stand in the centre of the area rather negatively, the placement of the assembly area on the most traffic-exposed corner looks dangerous. Overall, we consider the design to be functional, but we would have expected a greater sensitivity and presence of feelings and sensations directly related to the essence of the place. The Smetana Orchards proposal is not conceptualized as a park with seating under the trees. The quality of Komenský Street remains an issue.