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UK court blocks Adjaye’s controversial Holocaust Memorial

2022-04-08T11:44:00-04:00

David Adjaye and Ron Arad’s design for a UK Holocaust Memorial has been halted by the country’s High Court following a legal challenge. As reported by UK outlet Building Design, the £100 million ($130 million) proposal was ruled to have been in breach of a one-hundred-year-old law which protected the site from development.

The case was brought to court by the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust, who appealed a previous decision by the UK government that the project could proceed. Opponents of the scheme included senior religious figures, local community groups, and some Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors.

The scheme was due to be constructed in London’s Victoria Tower Gardens. Those who filed the legal challenge claimed that the plans did not comply with the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900, which prohibited Victoria Tower Gardens from containing an...

More legal holdup for David Adjaye and Ron Arad’s planned UK Holocaust Memorial in London

2021-11-23T14:35:00-05:00

The Ron Arad and David Adjaye-designed UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in London is facing another legal challenge this week after years of back-and-forth between a slate of opposition groups and the UK government.

The Times of Israel is reporting that a High Court judge has granted permission to an appeal effort authored by a group called the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust.

The plan had previously been given the all-clear back in July following a public inquiry begun by opponents whose qualms stem mainly from the memorial’s design and proposed location in the historic Victoria Towers Gardens. Adjaye has said he was “stunned” by the backlash, indicating that he felt the proposed design revolves around educational access and an intended “crescendo” effect at a public inquiry held last October. The architect also insisted the updated proposals left much of the park’s landscape altered but still available for its previous public use.

The same group initiated that pu...

David Adjaye's controversial UK Holocaust Memorial gets final approval

2021-07-30T08:00:00-04:00

David Adjaye’s proposed UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Westminster, London is going forward after gaining approval from the Minister of State for Housing Christopher Pincher this week.

The memorial has drawn a considerable amount of backlash in the Commonwealth since being announced in 2017. After a campaign against it by non-profits like the Royal Parks charity, the plan was officially recalled by Pincher’s predecessor in November of 2019 and rejected unanimously by the Westminster City Council four months later over its supposed intrusiveness and unsettling tone.

A public inquiry into the project was then held by an independent planning inspector whose recommendations were thus handed to Pincher’s office for approval in early spring. Adjaye said before the inquiry process that he felt anti-Semitism was behind some of the criticism of his £50 million ($70 million) plan.

Previously on Archinect: UK Holocaust memorial plan faces resistance from Royal Parks

Adjaye Assoc...

UK Holocaust memorial plan faces resistance from Royal Parks

2019-02-11T15:04:00-05:00

A Holocaust memorial proposed for outside Parliament would have a "significant harmful impact" on the area, the Royal Parks have said. The landmark is planned to be built at Victoria Tower Gardens on Millbank, alongside the River Thames. Royal Parks, which looks after the space, said it could not support the plans as the Grade II listed park was a "highly sensitive location".

A star-studded design competition ended in October 2017 with the selection of Adjaye Associates and Ron Arad Architects as the winning team to plan the UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre.

"Adjaye himself said last week that 'disrupting the pleasure of being in a park is key to the thinking' of the project," writes The Observer architecture critic, Rowan Moore, in his commentary published by The Guardian. "Certainly a memorial to the Holocaust should have impact. It should not slip by unnoticed. But there is a difference between the intended disruption of a work of art and the clumsiness of a bad brief."

Landscape architecture firm Gustafson Porter + Bowman, Plan A, and DHA Designs also contributed to the winning scheme which is now being rejected by the Royal Parks charity.

Preview 100% Design: This year’s highlights include Asif Khan and Ron Arad

2016-09-09T03:00:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by 100% Design.

100% Design, the UK’s largest trade fair for architects and designers, returns once more to London Olympia. The show, with over 26,000 international visitors spending exceeding £3.4 billion has a deserved reputation as the commercial heart of London Design Festival.

Over the past few years under show director William Knight, also responsible for Clerkenwell Design Week, the show has maintained a consistent focus on quality, driving 100% Design’s wider role of delivering international trade for London and the UK’s design sector. Along with a much appreciated move to the spectacular London Olympia, this has seen its unrivalled talks programme increase its reputation as the place to hear industry leaders and current trends as well as take part in the best professional development seminars.

This year is no exception, with an impressive talks line-up, which has been curated by the Design Museum as part of its ‘on loan’ campaign. The programme com...