LA Museum of the Holocaust | Hagy Belzberg

Published: April 15, 2021, 10 a.m.

Hagy Belzberg talks about the design concept of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. The new building for the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMH) is located within a public park, adjacent to the existing Los Angeles Holocaust Memorial.  Paramount to the design strategy is the integration of the building into the surrounding open, park landscape. The museum is submerged into the ground allowing the park’s landscape to continue over the roof of the structure.  Existing park pathways are used as connective elements to integrate the pedestrian flow of the park with the new circulation for museum visitors.  The pathways are morphed onto the building and appropriated as surface patterning.  The patterning continues above the museum’s galleries, further connecting the park’s landscape and pedestrian paths. By maintaining the material pallet of the park and extending it onto the museum, the hues and textures of concrete and vegetation blend with the existing material palette of Pan Pacific Park.  These simple moves create a distinctive façade for the museum while maintaining the parks topography and landscape.  The museum emerges from the landscape as a single, curving concrete wall that splits and carves into the ground to form the entry.  Designed and constructed with sustainable systems and materials, the LAMOTH building is on track to receive a LEED Gold Certification from the US Green Building Council.