United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — James Ingo Freed, 1993: photos for a case study

About United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial and museum dedicated to the history and legacy of the Holocaust. Opened in Washington, D.C. in 1993, the museum explores the Holocaust through permanent and traveling exhibitions, educational programs, survivor testimonies and archival collections. The USHMM was created with the stated purpose of helping leaders and citizens of the world confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity, and strengthen democracy.

Designed by the architect James Ingo Freed of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, in association with Finegold Alexander & Associates, the USHMM is created to be a "resonator of memory." Born to a Jewish family in Germany, Freed came to the United States at the age of nine in 1939 with his parents, who fled the Nazi regime. The outside of the building disappears into the neoclassical, Georgian, and modern architecture of Washington, D.C. Upon entering, each architectural feature becomes a new element of allusion to the Holocaust. In designing the building, Freed researched post-World War II German architecture and visited Holocaust sites throughout Europe. The Museum building and the exhibitions within are intended to evoke deception, fear, and solemnity, in contrast to the comfort and grandiosity usually associated with Washington, D.C., public buildings.

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