Houston, Texas
Christopher Miceli from Ralph Appelbaum Associates works closely with Holocaust Museum Houston’s teams to design new galleries and exhibitions for the Museum, enhancing educational programming and objectives.
The Holocaust Museum Houston celebrated its re-opening on June 22, 2019, after an expansion that broadened its mission as a regional hub for Holocaust education and a national voice for human rights and social justice.
The expansion more than doubled its size to 57,000 square feet, making it the nation’s fourth-largest Holocaust museum and one that is fully bilingual in English and Spanish.
RAA provided interpretive planning, content development, exhibit design, and media production for the entire exhibition project consisting of 22,000 square feet of exhibition space.
The new galleries focus on the Holocaust, Human Rights, and Diaries from the Holocaust and other conflicts.
The project has been awarded a 2020 Good Design Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The core of the museum experience is the new Holocaust exhibition that draws upon more recent scholarship while continuing to honor the Houston Holocaust survivors’ legacy.
A dramatic focal point of the gallery is the juxtaposition of two of the museum’s special artifacts—the Danish Rescue Boat and the German World War II Railcar.
Thematic threads and issues focusing on personal responsibility, awareness, and vigilance are woven throughout the narrative and continue to be explored in the adjacent Human Rights Gallery.
The Human Rights Gallery is an innovative space for students and the Houston community to learn about human rights and genocide during the 20th and 21st centuries.
This gallery highlights the continuing issues facing the targets of genocide, persecution, and oppression but also brings these human rights issues down to a smaller and more local scale—the rights and responsibilities we have to each other in daily life with highlight stories of local human rights activists.
In a third gallery, the story of Anne Frank becomes the entry point for a broader exploration of youth diarists from the Holocaust and other genocides and conflicts.
These very personal stories and the power of their words and testimony are accessed digitally in a space designed for both individual and group exploration.
At the center of the museum is a sculpture—a kaleidoscope of 1,500 butterflies that connects all three floors of the museum in an organically shaped swarm.
The butterflies are captured within and juxtaposed against, a sharp rectilinear volume created by a matrix of very thin cables. Each butterfly represents 1000 children, and together, is a memorial to the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust.
Project: Holocaust Museum Houston
Architects: Christopher Miceli, Ralph Appelbaum Associates
Client: Holocaust Museum Houston
