Kamp Amersfoort
Over the course of the Second World War, some 47,000 mostly political prisoners were held at this transit camp and penal colony. ‘Kamp Amersfoort’ was commanded by the SS.
In 2004, INBO designed an education pavilion on the campgrounds, followed by an invitation to expand the memorial site several years later. The main goal was to let visitors feel what the camp was once like and let the architecture play a modest supporting role.
The museum became a place of mémoir et miroir. What do we learn from what happened here?
The entrance is a desolate space, enclosed by high fences. It evokes feelings of abandonment and detachment that the prisoners must have experienced.
Only a few trees survived, standing there as silent witnesses. The path leads past a physical model of the camp layout, a number of footprints that portray the prisoners during the daily rollcall, and the museum’s entrance pavilion. A recessed cut in the interior of the mirrored glass-clad above-ground pavilion represents the once so painfully present camp commander’s office.
From here, visitors descend into darkness. Former camp residents get a face here. The exhibition connects the past to present injustices. In the virtual reality room visitors get confronted with moral dilemmas.
The museum concludes with a reflection room. What do we learn from this experience?
The exit of the underground museum leads to the courtyard, which offers an impressive line of sight to the shooting range. The Stone Man, sitting at the end, is a statue in memory of all those who were executed in the woods around the camp.
It is a truly integrated design. Initiators, staff members, volunteers, board members, exhibition designers, landscape architect and process supervisors: everyone had an apparent influence in this memorable memorial.
