The building project for the United States Holocaust Museum was proposed by President Carter in 1980. The brief required 'a permanent living memorial to the victims of the holocaust.' This brief sited in a symbolic environment along Washington's central symbolic-historic axis provided a challenge- it was important the building looked as if it belonged yet imposed itself as a new major building representative of its role and function.By drawing from its surrounding environment in materials (limestone and brick) and style, the building successfully does this.
The building is a montage of seperate elements positioned in relation to one another creating a narrative history that through the buildings form can be felt and not just heard.
The building is formed of two brick and limestone wings, held together by steel bridges resembling a catamaran in plan. Within the building there are two major spaces- the Hall of Witness and the Hall of Remembrance.
To find out more about the building-
James Ingo Freed was born on June 23, 1930, in Essen, Germany. A Jewish refugee in Nazi Germany, Freed emigrated to the United States inn 1939, making him more personally involved in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Freed is a partner of the firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, joining the company in 1956 and becoming a named partner in 1980. Freed's contribution to the firm has been significant, being responsible for some of their best known buildings, most notably the memorial of this website- the United States Holocaust Museum on the Mall in Washington DC.
In 1953 Freed recieved his bachelor of Architecture degree at the Illinois Institute of Technology where he studied under Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe. Freed then went on to work with Mies Van Der Rohe on the Seagram building. Like Freed, Van Der Rohe had escaped the holocaust.
The building project for the United States Holocaust Museum was proposed by President Carter in 1980. Freed was invited in 1986 to 'construct a permanent living memorial museum to the victims of the holocaust', ammending an earlier 'brutal' proposal.
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