Rainer Mahlamaeki Chosen to Design Museum of the History of Polish Jews

With the selection of a design from a Finnish architect, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is closer to becoming a reality.

Rainer Mahlamaeki of the Helsinki firm Lahdelma and Mahlamaeki Architects was chosen June 30 from a group of 250 architects, including Daniel Libeskind, the designer of the Jewish Museum in Berlin who is at work on the Freedom Tower in lower Manhattan, and Peter Eisenman, whose newly completed Berlin Holocaust Memorial opened in May.

"The concept of the museum is to provide narrative context for the Jewish story in Poland," Jerzy Halbersztadt, the project director for the venture, told JTA.

The idea for the Polish museum started in 1994, after the creation of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington, for which Halbersztadt also served as project director.

It will be located on the site of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, designed by Natan Rappaport, the current memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which stands in the old Jewish section of Warsaw.

Halbersztadt said not disturbing the Rappaport monument, which was unveiled in 1948, was of particular concern because it has long stood as a symbol of Jewish resistance.

"The architect had to have respect for the monument," he said.

"It's the most important emotional space, and we didn't want it diminished."