Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, has always been a place of different nations and a city with more than one identity. During the WWII, it lost the majority of the residents together with the stories and memories that remained untold to the new inhabitants. Although in the 19th century almost half of the city’s population were Jews and because of the intellectual and artistic aspirations the city was internationally known as Jerusalem of the North, it was totally destroyed during the WWII.

The project takes place in a site of the Great Synagogue - the cultural center and the most significant symbol of Jerusalem of the North, whose ruins are still existing under the ground.
The project seeks to work with the notion of memory and questions the definition of a traditional memorial.

The court yard becomes a place for three historical layers to be revealed - The Old Jewish Vilnius, the Soviet Vilnius and the present - day Vilnius. The Soviet kindergarten, built on the ruins of the Great Synagogue, is preserved and becomes part of the public space; the fragments of the ground floor of the Great Synagogue at the basement level are opened, and the newly emerging linear volume, symbolically emerging from the most important space of the Synagogue, connects with the past and extends the historical line in the context of the present city.

The “layered” memorial exhibits the surroundings and becomes a place for the daily life activities.