The new National Holocaust Monument at the corner of Booth and Wellington streets in Ottawa won’t be completed until December 2015 and won’t officially open until May 4, 2016.
But that won’t stop federal politicians from donning hard hats and work boots for a “small ceremony” at the unfinished site next August.
References to the planned August ceremony appear in a document posted recently on the federal government’s tendering website.
The document, which describes the monument as a “priority commemoration project for the Government of Canada”, invites companies that wish to bid on the project’s estimated $6-million construction contract to submit their qualifications by Oct. 9.
It says construction is expected to begin next March, adding: “The aim is to complete the monument in December 2015 in advance of a ceremony to be held on May 4, 2016.”
However, part of the monument — including a “contemplation space” and eternal flame — must be completed shortly before a “small ceremony” scheduled for next August, the NCC document advises.
To accommodate the ceremony, it says construction activity “would need to stop briefly. Attendees would be issued hard hats and boots,” it says, and plywood sheets could be temporarily installed for access to the site.
In an interview, Rabbi Daniel Friedman, chair of the National Holocaust Monument Development Council, said the first lighting of the eternal flame will occur at the August ceremony.
He said May 4, 2016, was chosen for the later official opening because it coincides with Yom HaShoah, the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day.
In an email, officials at Canadian Heritage said it is “common practice to organize more than one ceremony before officially unveiling a monument.”
For example, the department organized a site dedication ceremony this past June for the 1812 Monument that will be unveiled later this fall.
“From the start of this project, the official inauguration of the main elements of the National Holocaust Monument has been scheduled for late summer 2015,” the email said.
The total cost of the monument is $8.5 million, including construction, the design competition, marketing and other expenses, said Friedman. When it is finished, the NCC will take ownership and will be responsible for maintenance.
The development council, created in 2011 to raise money for the monument, has brought in just over $4 million of its $4.5 million objective, Friedman said. The federal government has promised to match donations to a maximum of $4 million.
When the government unveiled the winning design in May, Tim Uppal, a minister of state whose private member’s bill in 2010 led to the memorial’s approval, said he hoped the new landmark would be finished by the fall of 2015.
But that timetable was evidently too optimistic. The NCC has begun to remove contaminated soil from the site. When that is completed later this fall, the monument site will be excavated down to bedrock.
The NCC document fleshes out some of the details of the monument’s design by an all-star team led by Toronto’s Gail Lord that includes architect Daniel Libeskind, photographer Edward Burtynsky, landscape architect Claude Cormier and historical adviser Doris Bergen.
The monument consists of six concrete and metal mesh triangular walls arrayed in the form of a Star of David. Six large landscape photos will be installed on the concrete walls, one of which will be embedded directly into the concrete.
Visitors will reach the monument’s central gathering space through an entrance ramp on the northwest corner of the site.
From there, they will be able to see the contemplation space with 14-metre-high walls, featuring the eternal flame; another space that will contain interpretative exhibit panels, a 130-square-metre “memento” area, and an upper plaza, reached via the “Stairs of Hope.”
