Consisting of the Holocaust History Museum, Hall of Names, Museum for Holocaust Art, Visual Center, Learning Center, and the Exhibition Pavilion, the new museum complex due to open March 15,2005 will preserve the visitor’s indoor /outdoor experience of the site and will maintain the architecture/nature relationship characteristic of Yad Vashem. The architect’s interventions were designed so as not to compete with the remaining sites, but rather to be in dialogue with them, while the landscape architect, Shlomo Aronson, ensured to preserve and further add to the existing flora.

The new Holocaust History Museum to occupy over 3,000 square meters "three times the size of the existing Museum" will, for its most part, be situated below the ground. Its 175 meters- long linear structure in the form of a spike-line will cut through the mountain with its uppermost edge- a skylight- protruding through the mountain ridge.

Walking past the pavilion in the Museum’s main spine, which depicts the end of the war, the visitor will encounter the new structure of the Hall of Names. In the Hall’s genizah (repository) millions of Pages of Testimony will be stored, and in an adjacent room visitors will be able to conduct name searches by way of computers.

Upon completing the underground walk through the Holocaust History Museum, the visitor may proceed to an open courtyard. This is the place for the visitor to contemplate his tour of the Museum and plan the rest of his tour. He may choose to continue to the Museum for Holocaust Art, facing it, or proceed to the Exhibition Pavilion on the right.

In the new Museum for Holocaust Art, covering 450 square meters, a permanent exhibit of the world’s most extensive collection of Holocaust art will be on display.

Walking upstairs the visitor will reach the Hall of Remembrance marking the highest point on the mountain.

The interior of the museum and the exhibitions will be designed by Dorit Harel.

For more information about the New Museum Complex, click here