A scar cut into the capital’s green skin—quiet, disorienting, and impossible to “finish” in one pass.
Monument in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Featured in Daniel Libeskind's definitive monograph, Breaking Ground: An Immigrant's Journey.
Visitor Guide
Go twice: once fast to let the concrete corridors hit you, then slow—read the inscriptions with your back to the city noise and notice how the sound drops as you move inward.
Stand at the outer entry looking down the first corridor; shoot at blue hour (20–30 minutes after sunset) when the concrete turns graphite and the city lights hover beyond.
Open-air memorial; you can walk through freely at any time. No tickets. In winter, watch for ice in the deeper corridors.
Libeskind uses “incomplete” axes and dead-ends as a spatial argument: the monument refuses a clean narrative arc—your body keeps getting interrupted.
30–60 minutes
Design & Structure
Designed as a field of tilted concrete planes arranged into narrowing corridors—more choreography than object. The geometry reads as a fractured grid that manipulates sightlines, acoustics, and perceived temperature (sun vs. shade) to make memory physical.
Board-formed concrete and dark stone/metal elements—deliberately blunt, weathering in place so time becomes part of the surface.
What looks like a purely sculptural landscape is a disciplined system of retaining and freestanding concrete walls handling lateral loads while maintaining razor-thin tolerances at corners and joints.
More by Daniel Libeskind
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Denver Art Museum
Royal Ontario Museum
Bundeswehr Military History Museum
Contemporary Jewish Museum
Felix Nussbaum Haus
Jewish Museum Berlin
Nearby in Ottawa
Frequently Asked Questions
Who designed National Holocaust Monument?+
National Holocaust Monument was designed by Daniel Libeskind. It is located in Ottawa, Canada.
Where is National Holocaust Monument located?+
National Holocaust Monument is located in Ottawa, Canada. Its coordinates are 45.4169°, -75.7146°.
Can I visit National Holocaust Monument?+
National Holocaust Monument is a real building in Ottawa that can be viewed from the outside. Check local information for interior access and visiting hours. Use the Parametric Atlas walking tour feature to plan a route that includes this building.