JDC To Build Jewish Community Center At Babi Yar

Winner Announced In International Architectural Design Competition

MAY 29, 2002 – New York – The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Inc. (JDC) recently announced the winner of an international architectural competition for the design of the new community center in Kiev, Ukraine near Babi Yar.  Nine proposals were selected from the five Israeli architectural firms and four Ukrainian firms that were invited to the closed planning competition.  The panel of judges was headed by Dr. Amos Avgar of JDC and included a representative of the Jewish community in Kiev, and planning and architectural professionals – architect Stanley Teigerman from Chicago, art historian Dr. Michael Levine from Israel, and the president of the Academy for Architecture in the Ukraine, Dr. Valentin Stolko.  Representatives from JDC were also involved as were 500 members from the Jewish community who were invited to participate in the selection process.

The winners, architect Urich and Daniella Plessner of the Plessner architectural firm said: "We wanted the center to combine the spiritual contrasts between the past and future, and to create a symbiosis between the shape of the buildings: on one hand, creative cultural life can flourish within them, and on the other, active knowledge about the past will be preserved in them."  The Plessner firm has designed, among other projects, the Liberty Bell Park in Jerusalem, Beit Gabriel in Tzemah, and the reconstruction of the Pagoda House in Tel Aviv.  According to JDC, the winning plan combines "the two main elements of the center: an active community center for the 100,000 Jews of Kiev, and a heritage and Holocaust memorial center."  The winning plan was designed as a village street.

The memorial site will be built on land given by the municipality of Kiev to JDC who will fund the establishment of the center in cooperation with Jewish organizations in Kiev.  JDC has established 179 Jewish community centers throughout the former Soviet Union in cooperation with the local Jewish communities.  The cornerstone for the site was laid by the President of Ukraine, Leonid Kutchma on the memorial day for the Babi Yar massacre that took place in 1941.