OP Architecture Wins Special Jury Prize in International Competition for Jewish Memorial

Danish OP architecture in collaboration with Rambøll Engineering were among the five winners of the international competition for a memorial to Frankfurt’s more than 10,000 deported Jews.

135 entries from around the world participated in the first phase of the open competition, out of which 20 were anonymously selected for the second phase and further processing. The jury awarded five proposals; three second prizes and two special prizes.

The memorial is located next to the historical ‘Grossmarkthalle’ in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from which more than 10,000 Jews were collected and deported to concentration camps in the period 1941 to 1945. In the same site, the European Central Bank’s new headquarters, a high-rise designed by Austrian architectural firm Coop Himmelblau, will be erected.

OP’s proposal Absent Monument will provide the visitors a very direct and sensuous experience of ‘deportation’. By physically removing a part of the river close to the Frankfurter Grossmarkthalle.

“The Void was the strongest way to express deportation and sadness, without attempting to match the sizes of the Grosmarkthalle and the future the high-rise“ says Niels Lund Petersen, project leader and partner in the OP. “We wanted to create a place expressing loss, emptiness and deprivation - but at the same time try to evoke hope and show the beauty of nature and human creations as a part of this experience.“

Although the River Main was not used for deportations it is of great symbolic value as a picture of life and history, and as Frankfurt’s connection to the world. The hole will make the water fall and change direction. Absent Monument is about this sudden change of water movement as metaphor for deportation.

The void does not symbolize a grave. Holocaust can not, and should not be put to rest. Absent Monument is about keeping the memory alive - about creating an eternal opening, and about our perception of water as an unbreakable mass that will always unite.

The architects presented the proposal to Engineering Company Rambøll, who were immediately interested in cooperating. Simon Jensen, Project Director of Rambøll said: “Absent Monument is a striking project that sticks to the memory, so we looked forward to take up the challenge”

The jury was intrigued by Absent Monument, but in doubt of the feasibility, which is why the project received the Jury’s Special Award. Architects and engineers, however, subsequently wrote a letter to the committee members asking for permission to elaborate on the project along with the three second prize winners.

“This time ‘no’ was just perceived as a different way of saying yes” says Niels Lund Petersen, partner in OP. “By creating a public debate, which involves several stakeholders and authorities, Absent Monument requires that everybody in Frankfurt makes an effort - which in the end constitutes the ultimate expression of remembrance”.

It is not the first time Niels Lund Petersen leads a much-debated project. As former associate in BIG, he was competition and design responsible for the Danish Pavilion for Shanghai Expo 2010, which implied lending out the world famous sculpture and national gem ‘the little mermaid’.

All incoming competition proposals are exhibited in Museum Judengasse, Kurt-Schumacher-Straße 10, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Parallel to the exhibition, there will be a public debate about the awarded projects, and by next year the outcome of this debate will determine the final project.