The National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, a project by architecture firm Office Winhov, has been unanimously chosen by the professional jury as the Best Building of the Year 2025. The jury chairman Ingrid van Engelshoven announced this last night at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. The Audience Award went to ‘Office full of Waste’ in Katwijk by Popma ter Steege Architects and the Encouragement Award was presented to Groothuijse de Boer Architects for ‘Two residential buildings in Hattem’.
The buildings of the new National Holocaust Museum each tell a gripping story. The museum focuses mainly on personal stories and local history. Office Winhov was commissioned to design a light museum, emphasising that everything here took place in daylight.
As a singular and emotionally-charged location, the National Holocaust Museum presents the history of the persecution of Dutch Jews during World War II. Opened in 2024, the museum is housed in the former teaching school Hervormde Kweekschool. It forms a larger whole with the former theatre Hollandsche Schouwburg across the street. The Hollandsche Schouwburg was the assembly point from which Jews were deported to the camps, and as such was already an established memorial site. The story of the ‘Reformed Nursery School’ is less well known: it was via here where 600 detained Jewish children were brought to relative safety. While preserving the buildings’ surviving historical elements, the museum is formulated as a place for both remembrance and to pass on history to future generations. The goal of the architectural design was to provide the mental space for the personal stories to come to life for the visitors – to give a sense of place: this happened here.
Audience Award
From the announcement of the nominations, votes could be cast online for seven nominated projects. The winner of the Audience Award is: Office full of Waste, Katwijk by Architectenbureau Popma ter Steege Architecten.
For KaVA, an outdated defence building was transformed into a government office and an inspiring example of high-quality reuse. Material was systematically retained, reused within the project or donor material was applied. Office full of Waste’ shows that there is a qualitative alternative to the disposable culture in construction.
Encouragement Prize
The jury also awards an Encouragement Prize to a project that excels in innovation or has been developed by an up-and-coming talent in the architectural industry. The chosen projects are: Two residential buildings in Hattem by Architectenbureau Groothuijse de Boer architecten.
The project for two residential buildings in Hattem focuses on careful incorporation within the historical context. The dwellings are organised around a collective outdoor space, connecting the city with the individual dwellings. The design emphasises quality of living, with attention to density, social cohesion and the surroundings.
