We are delighted that our recent project with Casson Mann has been shortlisted in the Spaces category for the 2022 Design Week Awards. You can view the complete shortlist here, & while we can see the gallery is up against some great competition, we are confident the sensitive approach to this most difficult of stories to tell will be recognised by the judges.
The winners will be revealed at the end of June, so we will have to wait patiently until then, but in the meantime, congratulations to Casson Mann, Squint/Opera and all of the curators, makers, conservators, contractors and interpretation specialists we worked with to bring these spaces to life.
We were delighted when our clients at the Imperial War Museum accepted the trophy for the Best New Permanent Gallery at the 2022 Museum + Heritage Awards at on the 11th May. As they said at the time, ‘This has been so much more than a job‘. Indeed, it has: so many compelling stories, artefacts and personal effects from a complete V1 flying bomb to cap badges present a completely new view of the second major conflict of the Twentieth Century.
The Holocaust Galleries in particular rewrite the rules on presenting such a harrowing narrative: before the emphasis has been on sombre, dark spaces; here, Casson Mann fill the galleries with light to show that the events of the Holocaust were not hidden, but done in plain sight, witnessed by so many people at the time, creating a completely new impression of both the perpetrators and their victims. By comparison, the World War 2 Galleries emphasise the human scale of the war, with many individual stories creating a compelling timeline of the conflict.
We were delighted to work with the client team of directors, curators, conservators & interpretation specialists to give each object, text and image its proper place & visibility in these complex spaces.
We want to express our thanks to the two design companies, Casson Mann & Ralph Applebaum Associates, who made us part of their design teams to deliver these stories – exhibition design is a complex & involved process; we only feed into a small part of the machinery that delivers the finished project, but we very happy to involved in every step of the way, from concept to commissioning.
The response to the galleries has been overwhelmingly positive: The Times described the design as ‘compelling’, the Telegraph, ‘a tremendous achievement’ & the Guardian, ‘stimulating, sensitive & humane’.
DHA Designs have completed the lighting design for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries in the triforium space at Westminster Abbey. Set more than 50ft above the Abbey floor, the medieval Triforium has never been open to the public before. Over 300 treasures from the Abbey’s collection will illustrate the rich thousand-year history of the institution.
DHA Designs are delighted to be part of the winning team for the competition to create the National Holocaust Memorial, located in Victoria Tower Gardens near the Houses of Parliament.
The competition was conceived by the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation to remember the 6 million Jewish people that were murdered during the Holocaust, as well as all other victims of Nazi persecution.
