The building: Extension of the Getto Fighters' House
Location: Kibbutz Lochamei Hagetaot
Building Year: 2006
Architect: Zvi Efrat, Meira Kowalsky with Dror Aviram
Supervising architect: Keren Avni
Structural Engineers: Kidan
This addition to the museum on Kibbutz Lochamei Hagetaot, which was designed by
Samuel Bickels. The addition, which was completed in 2006, includes the completion
of an inaccessible space that is ‘imprisoned’ within the existing building, and which had
not been fully executed within the framework of the original plan.The planners wanted
to preserve the existing museum and the original curatorial concept of the building’s
founders.
A four-level steel construction, which does not touch the walls of the existing building,
was introduced into the empty space. The central exhibition hall presents the story
of the founders of the kibbutz and of the Ghetto Fighters’ House, all of whom were
Holocaust survivors, by means of personal testimonies. The hall is illuminated by means
of indirect natural light that filters down vertically from above, and which relates the
main hall to the roof terrace and observatory above it and to the memorial hall beneath
it. The panoramic view of the kibbutz and of the western Galilee underscores the
themes of survival, development and life after the Holocaust.
