Diller, Libeskind or MVRDV — who will build a memorial complex in Orlando?

/ Architecture /

Bureau of Elizabeth Diller, Daniel Libeskind and MVRDV compete for the right to build a memorial complex dedicated to the tragedy of the summer of 2016 — a mass shooting in a night club Press in Orlando, Florida.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Studio Libeskind, MVRDV and three other teams are participating in the competition for the construction of the National Pulse Memorial & Museum. The club building will be turned into a memorial, and a museum will be built three blocks from it. The project will perpetuate the memory of the victims of the tragedy of June 12, 2016, when Omar Matyn opened fire on night club visitors, killing 49 and wounding 68 people. This is one of the most mass executions in the history of the United States after the events of September 2001.

Diller Scofido + Renfro and Rene Gonzalez Architects suggested shielding the club building with a bead net and planting a reflective "garden" around it. © Diller Scofido + Renfro

Diller Scofidio + Renfro together with the bureau Rene Gonzalez Architects from Miami offered to cover the existing structure with screens made of beads, and to install inside 49 multi-colored columns made of ceramic tiles. Penetrating the entire club building, they protrude onto the roof, simultaneously supporting the entire structure and creating light wells. "They seem to dance, like visitors that night, and rise to the sky, not broken and strong, physically supporting the roof and the floor," Elizabeth Diller noted in the bureau. Through the round glass openings in the roof surrounding these columns, one can see the original club and dance floor below, while the tinted glass in them fills the space with shimmering colored light pouring in from above." A reflective garden will be built around the building, consisting of cypress trees and 268 columns symbolizing the victims. American landscape architect Raymond Jungles also worked on the project.

The MVRDV team presented the museum in the form of giant green letters forming the word LOVE, that is, "love". © MVRDV

The MVRDV office decided to make the museum building in the form of separate blocks - giant LOVE letters planted with plants - and place it a few blocks from the memorial. It will also include a parking lot topped by a green roof and structures towering over it.

The proposal of Daniel Libeskind's office includes a portal made of colored frames. © Studio Libeskind

Daniel Libeskind's team, in collaboration with the Montreal firm of landscape architecture Claude Cormier + Associés, Thinc Design and the American artist Jenna Holzer, proposed to install a portal made of multi-colored frames, which, smoothly wrapping, form a heart-shaped passage leading to the Pulse club. The adjacent museum is a towering, uneven structure made of blocks of different sizes.

A project by Heneghan Peng team with a white gabled building. © Heneghan Peng

The Irish studio Heneghan Peng designed a jagged white monolithic building for the complex's museum as part of its project, while the scheme by the French studio Coldefy & Associés and the RDAI office includes a curved canopy that provides a sheltered relaxation area around the existing nightclub, and a curvilinear curved museum tower made of white curved rack

A proposal from the MASS Design group for the memorial part of the complex. © MASS Design Group

The MASS Design group, which recently completed a memorial to victims of gun violence for the Chicago Biennale of Architecture, plans to build a fan-shaped structure on the site of the club, and make the complex's museum in the form of a three-unit building, similar to a truncated and inverted pyramid.

Offer from Coldefy & Associés and RDAI teams. © Coldefy & Associates and RDAI

All six finalist projects are now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center, as well as in an online format to present them to the public and receive feedback from residents of the city. The winner will be determined on October 30, 2019.