Babyn Yar Masterplan Open Ideas Competition

Babyn Yar today is a public park, nature reserve, recreational space, memorial site, and integral part of the city with various distinct ecological zones and heritage structures. The purpose of this competition is to develop an ambitious plan that connects the different projects of the Memorial Center and grounds them in a holistic, polyphonic, and ambulatory experience of the site.

Category Idea Competition / Open to Students
Type International, Idea, Open, Single-Stage, Anonymous
Genre Landscape, Memorial
Country Babyn Yar, Kiev
RegDeadline 15 May 2022 GoogleCal iCal
15 May 2022 (via Online)
Eligibility Students, young professionals, and established practices of architecture, art, choreography, philosophy, science, and more

Description
On September 29 and 30, 1941, more than 33,000 Jewish men, women, and children were murdered in Babyn Yar, a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. This event constituted one of the largest single massacres perpetrated by German troops against Jews during World War II. Over the following two years, Germans killed upwards of 70,000 more people. Upon evacuating the city in 1943, the bodies were exhumed and burned. Babyn Yar is the international symbol of what is known today as the "Holocaust by Bullets."
Following the War, there was increasing pressure from the public to memorialize the historic events at Babyn Yar, but these were both halted and compromised by the Soviet authorities that viewed the history of Babyn Yar as "inconvenient." The site was instead used as a landfill, which resulted in a fatal mudslide. The topography was then further erased by other landscape interventions, and new construction erased important historical sites such as the Jewish Cemetery. Babyn Yar is also an international symbol of resistance to the Soviet policy of obfuscating and instrumentalizing the politics of memory.
Babyn Yar today is a public park, nature reserve, recreational space, memorial site, and integral part of the city with various distinct ecological zones and heritage structures. The purpose of this competition is to develop an ambitious plan that connects the different projects of the Memorial Center and grounds them in a holistic, polyphonic, and ambulatory experience of the site.
The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (BYHMC) seeks bold plans and daring visions to structure and guide the development of the 132-hectare site of Babyn Yar, Kyiv, the international symbol of the Holocaust by Bullets. The competition is open to students, young professionals, and established practices of architecture, art, choreography, philosophy, science, and more. To enter this open competition, register and submit your proposal by May 15, 2022.

Jury
Nick Axel (Jury Chair): Curator of Architecture and Chair of the Architectural Advisory Board, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center; Head of Architectural Design, Gerrit Rietveld Academie; Deputy Editor, e-flux Architecture
David Basulto: Founder and Editor-in-Chief, ArchDaily
Aric Chen: Artistic Director, Het Nieuwe Instituut
Jean-Louis Cohen: Sheldon H. Solow Professor in the History of Architecture, New York University Institute of Fine Arts
Nikolaus Hirsch: Architect, Artistic Director, CIVA; Editor, e-flux Architecture
Meira Kowalsky: Architect, Founder of Efrat-Kowalsky Architects
Ilya Khrzhanovsky: Artistic Director, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center
Marina Otero Verzier: Head of Social Design, Design Academy Eindhoven
Robert Jan van Pelt: University Professor, School of Architecture, University of Waterloo
Maksym Rokmaniko: Founder and Director, The Center for Spatial Technologies
Roza Tapanova: Acting Director General of the National Historical Memorial Preserve "Babyn Yar"
Ines Weizman: Head of PhD Program, School of Architecture, Royal College of Art, London; Founder, Centre for Documentary Architecture

Prize
Up to three winners of the competition will each be awarded US$20,000, hereinafter referred to as the Winners. Winners will be invited to further develop their Concept in cooperation with BYHMC, the terms and conditions of which will be subject to a separate agreement. Winners will also be awarded a visit to Kyiv. In case the winner is a participant that is a creative team or a legal entity, BYHMC will invite up to two persons from each team of participants and/or legal entity. Such persons are independently determined by the participant among the authors of the Concept. BYHMC does not guarantee the implementation of the Winners Concepts. Up to four participants will each receive honorable mentions in the amount US$5,000, hereinafter referred to as the Honorable Mention Winner. Please note that for the amount of awards the Customer must withhold the appropriate taxes and fees at the time of payment.

Entry Fee
None

Timetable
Competition Winners Announced: June, 2022
Site Visit for Winning Teams: July, 2022
Winning Proposal Development Submission Deadline: September, 2022

Organizer
The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center

Official Website