The Museum of the History of the Tragedy is an ongoing project for the first museum structure in Babyn Yar, a ravine in Kyiv where between 1941 and 1943, Nazi occupiers killed and buried nearly 100,000 Jewish people alongside other minorities and partisans. The structure comprises an 80 by 80 meters roof that projects over an excavation, revealing the progressive terraforming of the area over the last 80 years. A scale model will be installed at the bottom of the excavation and serve as an anchor point for the museum. The model was developed by researchers who paired archival materials and forensic evidence with eyewitness testimonies to reproduce and spatialize the events that occurred at and around the site in 1941.

The design for the museum is derived from historical research into the kurgan, a type of burial mound widespread in the Ukrainian steppes and significant to the country’s cultural history. Angular planes with a stone amalgamate surface and long-span steel truss structures compose a pyramidal form that appears as if an artificial hill. The project development is currently delayed due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Project: Museum of the History of the Tragedy

Client: BYHMC, sub.global

Location: Kyiv

Year: 2022

Status: Construction on hold

Surface: 4,800 m²

Client Representative: Ilya Krshanowsky

Design Team: Andrea Faraguna, Roula Assaf, Mattias Beckman, Deniz Celtek, Ottavio Paponetti, Valya Zaytseva

Consultant: Federico Campagna

Structural Engineer: Mario Monotti