As we celebrate Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, with our Jewish friends Nov.28–Dec. 6, we’re honored to shine a light on a site that remains one of M2L’s finest project accomplishments during our 25 years in business: Holocaust Museum Houston.
Working with architect PGAL, contractor McCarthy and engineer DBR Engineering Consultants, M2L Associates served as landscape architect for the two-year $34 million expansion and renovation of the Houston Museum District landmark, more than doubling the facility’s square footage and adding outdoor gathering and event spaces to the grounds, which now cover an entire city block.
The newly launched museum was unveiled in June 2019 to critical praise and both regional and national press noting the renovation brought the museum to national prominence, extending its mission beyond its regional reach to become a “national voice for human rights and social justice.”
Today, Holocaust Museum Houston is the nation’s fourth-largest Holocaust museum, behind the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie, Illinois. The expanded Holocaust Museum Houston showcases four permanent galleries, two changing exhibition galleries, an indoor theater and outdoor amphitheater, as well as welcome center, classrooms, research library, café, expanded and upgraded parking, and more.
The landscape project included the outdoor event spaces, amphitheater, a garden patio, and a commemorative wall. The LEED-certified renovation includes credits from a water-efficient, landscape irrigation system.
Dr. Kelly J. Zúñiga, the museum’s CEO, said of the grand opening, “With the rise in anti-Semitism, hate crimes and threats to human rights within our own country, our role in education and outreach is more important than ever before.”
M2L Associates Principal Weng-Ping Hung, who served as the M2L’s lead designer on the project, said she was proud M2L could play a role in a site with such historical and cultural significance. “What an honor for all of us at M2L to be associated with Holocaust Museum Houston and all it stands for,” she said. “The museum exists to educate all of us and especially the next generation about the dangers of hatred and prejudice in our society. These themes remain as important as ever today, so it was crucial for our landscape designs to foster a sense of unity and strength for everyone who experiences the museum.”
One of the museum’s most prominent displays, and Hung’s favorite, is a two-story kaleidoscope of 1,500 acrylic butterflies hanging in the entryway, each representing 1,000 of the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust. The Butterfly Project began at the museum in 1996 as a way to educate school children about the Holocaust and has since turned into a worldwide phenomenon. Hung tied into the butterfly theme with the landscape design by incorporating the caterpillar’s curled shape into the landscape forms, shapes and materials.
The museum’s annual attendance averaged 130,000 before the renovation, and was expected to increase by 35% with the expanded facilities. When the pandemic closed doors to in-person exhibitions in 2020–2021, the museum created online assets by developing several online virtual tours that were estimated to reach more than 9,400 students.
Holocaust Museum Houston first opened its doors in 1996, the fulfillment of long-time Houstonian and Holocaust survivor Siegi Izakson’s dream to ensure a place in Houston to preserve for future generations the memory of those who had perished in the Holocaust and the stories of those who had survived.
For more information about Holocaust Museum Houston or to plan your visit, click here.