The workshop Heinle, Wischer & Partner, together with the landscape architect Heinz W. Hallmann, were recognized as winners of the pan-European anonymous competition.
Their project best matches the jury's idea of a "simple and modest" building for an information and research center on the site where the headquarters of the Gestapo, SS, SD were located from 1933 to 1945, during the war years - also the RSHA: it was the center state apparatus of terror and violence. Now these buildings have been destroyed to their foundations.
According to the architects, the shape and location of the archives center creates a dialogue with the adjacent 1881 Martin Gropius exhibition and museum building. At the same time, the new one-storey building maintains an "accentuated neutrality" in relation to the historical events associated with this place.
Andreas Nahama, Director of the Topography of Terror Foundation, expressed his satisfaction that the winning project, due to its low height, does not dominate the rest of the memorial. At the same time, due to its lining with light metal sheets, it still attracts enough attention as a place for the dissemination of knowledge about the past.
After the refusal to implement the large-scale project of Peter Zumthor and the decision to demolish the already built parts of it, the need for a new concept of the archival and educational center, which would emphasize the importance of this historical site, became obvious. For this, the now completed competition was held.
