Holocaust Museum of Greece, Thessaloniki

Location: Thessaloniki, Greece
Year: 2015
Area: 8,000 sqm. 
Status: In Progress
Client: The Jewish Community of Thessaloniki
Team : Avinoam Sharon, Alon Sarig, Roy Finkelman
Collaboration: Heide & Von Beckerath Architekten Berlin, Makridis Associates, Thessaloniki

Project Description

Thessaloniki’s Jewish community, the oldest in Europe, was present in the city for 2,000 years and was the largest ethnic community of the city between 1492 and 1912.

The fire of 1917 destroyed many of the Jewish buildings of Thessaloniki and the extermination of the Jewish community during the German occupation of World War II erased much of the city’s Jewish fabric.

By offering Thessaloniki a new public monument, the proposed Holocaust Memorial & Human Rights Educational Center seeks to commemorate the devastating fate of the Jewish community, but also to recount its cultural history and rejuvenation after the war, and to host an open forum for multi-cultural education and forward-looking dialogs between various identity groups.

The project consists of an octagonal tower, a low ring-shaped building and a public plaza. The 32 meter high energy-efficient tower is a museum, an archive and a cultural center.