Winning Project for the Expansion and Redesign of the Gusen Memorials Unveiled

November 17th, 2025

The winning project for the expansion and redesign of the Gusen Concentration Camp Memorials was presented in Langenstein on November 17, 2025, in the presence of Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, Austrian Minister for Labor and Economic Affairs Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer, Governor of Upper Austria Thomas Stelzer, Burghauptmann Reinhold Sahl, and the Director of the Mauthausen Memorial, Barbara Glück.

The submission from the Viennese architectural firm "querkraft architekten," developed in collaboration with "Kieran Fraser Landscape Design" and the artist Peter Sandbichler, was selected as the winning project by an international jury in June 2025.

Construction is scheduled to begin in 2027 and be completed by 2031.

This project aims to complement the existing structures of the former Gusen concentration camp complex in St. Georgen and Langenstein with the following new elements: An arrival building, a "Path of Remembrance", a "Room of Silence", and a semantic link between the former stone crusher in Gusen and the Bergkristall tunnel system in St. Georgen/Gusen. Furthermore, the former course of individual tunnels of the former underground Messerschmitt aircraft factory of the Gusen II concentration camp will be made visible at the House of Remembrance in St. Georgen.

The two-stage design competition was launched EU-wide in September 2024 by Burghauptmannschaft Österreich and the Mauthausen Memorial. This winning project was selected from more than 40 submissions to transform the Gusen concentration camp memorials, neglected for decades, into dignified, modern, and future-oriented international memorial and educational sites in the Mauthausen-Gusen-St. Georgen Region of Awareness.

The Gusen Memorial Committee (GMC) is delighted that this essential milestone is now reached, following decades of dedicated work, largely single-handedly done by our founding members Martha Gammer and Prof. Rudolf Haunschmied, with the aim to preserving the last remnants, researching the largely unknown history of the former St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen concentration camp complex, and developing various projects to commemorate and to teach the public in Austria and beyond about it.

The winning project can be viewed in detail on the website of the architectural firm querkraft architekten.

The seven other submissions (competition results) from the second stage of the competition can be viewed on the website of the Gusen Memorial.

The presentation of the winning project can be watched via this coverage by the Austrian national broadcasting corporation ORF On.

Further information about the winning project and its public presentation can also be found via the following links:

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