UK Construction Journal - Issue 1 - April 2026 - Flipbook - Page 89
new roof garden on the same level. The 30-seater, ground
floor learning space will be for the use of young people at
GCSE level and above, as well as providing additional,
flexible space for the Library. The first floor gallery, meanwhile,
will feature displays that highlight key documents and objects
in the Library’s collections, as well as telling the story of the
Library from the 1920s in Germany until today.
destroyed. However, the evidence that it contains cannot
be forgotten and what this evidence communicates is
permanent, irreversible and set in stone. The exhibition
design must acknowledge the materiality of the
evidence while also communicating its seriousness and
undeniability, balancing aspects of ephemerality with a
firm, assured base.”
The new-build extension will be topped by a series of sculpted
rooflights to allow soft, north-facing daylight into the interior,
whilst external cladding will feature an etched metal, abstracted
pattern, taken from the concept of books, documents and
shelving and inspired by the Library’s identity as a place of
research and ongoing learning.
Origins of The Wiener Holocaust Library
The Wiener Holocaust Library is one of the world’s leading
and most extensive archives on the Holocaust, the Nazi era
and related themes – and also the world’s oldest such archive
and the largest of its kind in Britain.
Its origins lie in the work of Dr Alfred Wiener, who
campaigned against Nazism during the 1920s and 30s and
gathered evidence about antisemitism and the persecution of
Jews in Germany. Dr Wiener and his family fled Germany
in 1933 and settled in Amsterdam in 1934, before he made
it to London. Tragically, his family remained trapped in the
Netherlands, later to be imprisoned at the Westerbork and
Bergen-Belsen camps. His wife died shortly after her release
from Belsen.
The proposed gallery spaces, material treatment and
architectural features will relate directly to the work of the
Library, honouring those who gathered evidence in the most
difficult circumstances in order to document and record
antisemitism and fascism.
New proposed works to improve the existing, four-storey
Georgian terraced building are particularly focused on the
entrance foyer, board room, reading room and basement,
where improvement works are critical for preserving archive
material. A new air-handling system will also be installed as
part of the works.
Later in 1934, Dr Wiener set up the Jewish Central Information
Office (JCIO) at the request of the Board of Deputies of
British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association. This archive
collected information about the Nazis, which formed the
basis of campaigns to undermine their activities. Following
the November Pogrom of 1938, Wiener prepared to bring
his collection to the UK. It arrived the following summer and is
believed to have opened the day the Nazis invaded Poland.
Soft-toned timber and pale brick will represent the extension’s
secondary design language for the interior spaces, along
with limited colour interventions in tones of blue. These spaces
have been designed to offer warmth, character and light
and to embody a feeling of optimism, in spite of the dark and
challenging nature of much of the institution’s subject matter.
The Library, which is a charity, moved to its current Grade IIlisted building in 2011. The site’s principal leaseholder is the
University of London (comprised of UCL, Birkbeck, SOAS and
The Bartlett). The Library obtained a 100-year lease from the
University of London and subsequently renovated the building
on Russell Square, including purpose-created archive stores in
the basement. The new scheme represents the first and most
ambitious building works since that time.
Interpretation and Exhibition Design
The new gallery exhibition will seek to explain the role of the
library through history: why it was set up, what acts is has
performed (and continues to perform) and why it has been a
historically important place. It will communicate the philosophy
of the Library and connect to the Library’s core values and
purpose, namely to support historical and family research and
learning and engagement, teaching about the Holocaust and
the Nazi era.
The Library currently receives around 6000 visitors per annum
to its events, exhibitions and Reading Room. Visitors include
members of the general public, students from local and other
universities, tourists, school students and historical researchers.
It will act as a place which challenges Holocaust denial and
presents the public with the evidence of historic persecution
and genocide, allowing the public to access critical historic
resources and to deepen their understanding of this crucial
historical period. Additionally, the Library will be depicted as a
living and breathing archive, whose role will never be complete
as it continues to collect and share the evidence of Nazi crimes
and stand against persecution.
“
“
Dr Barbara Warnock, Co-Director of The Wiener
Holocaust Library said:
“
This exciting project will be transformational for the
Library, enabling us to significantly expand our offering
to visitors to our central London location in Russell Square.
The beautiful new building will provide us with new
opportunities to share our history and our extraordinary
collections in the new exhibition space and learning
space. It will strengthen our ability to bring the evidence of
Nazi crimes, collected by our predecessors from the time
of the Nazi rise to power, to the audiences of the future.”
There is a complexity to this exhibition”
Pippa Nissen, Director of Nissen Richards Studio commented.
Overall, the materiality of the objects - ‘the evidence’
- is vulnerable and can be easily damaged, forgotten,
UK CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL
87
