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Abstract

What does it mean to create an exhibition about how architecture was used as forensic evidence in a trial that attempted to not only deny atrocities of the Holocaust but to deny historical evidence? Architectural Historian, Robert Jan van Pelt organized such an exhibition titled The Evidence Room at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. Elements displayed were reconstructed from the architectural plans for Auschwitz. This essay asks what it means to locate the exhibition ex situ and the “evidence” displayed therein that is not the evidence itself but facsimiles of the designed objects and sites. What are we to make of this exhibition in its Venice venue or elsewhere and the memory it aims to address?

Keywords

architecture exhibitions holocaust representation Auschwitz Venice Biennale of Architecture

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