In one of his many interviews about the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, the Jewish American architect, Peter Eisenman, spoke about the way in which he feels the Holocaust should be commemorated:

Eisenman is referring here to the two decades preceding the inauguration in 2005 of the Memorial he designed in Berlin. During these two decades, not only did the Holocaust become a commodity with mass appeal, but it also turned into a huge business. As Tim Cole showed in his book Selling the Holocaust,2 Holocaust commemoration involves billions of dollars and the Holocaust as a brand is being defended to maintain its unique status. It is no wonder, then, that Eisenman, who has always been at the forefront of architectural experimentalism, refused to take part in these processes. Ever since he submitted his dissertation to the University of Cambridge in 1963,3 Eisenman has developed a discourse and practice that challenged the boundaries of architecture. Referring to mainstream architecture was certainly not his perception of the built environment; neither were attempts to be communicative on the popular level, whether it had to do with the Holocaust or with architecture in general. As Eisenman explains in relation to his approach to the design of the Memorial in Berlin:

Eisenman’s criticism of the communicative nature of Holocaust commemoration, whether through kitsch architecture or communicative modes of horror, did not conclude with his wish to create an experience that could not be assimilated into the psyche. Coming from a deconstructivist tradition that dwelled extensively on disorientation in and by architecture,5 labyrinthine structures6 and the void, Eisenman was not occupied with orientation and order in the memorial:

This experience was not directed. In many ways, Eisenman tried to leave the monument without a clear signification, a monument that does not try to convey a specific message or idea:

For him, the Memorial’s open-ended aspect allows multiple everyday activities to take place there. As Eisenman describes:

The Memorial’s non-symbolic features allow the introduction of different modes of operations into its space. If architecture as a text allows one to “read” in specific ways, then an architectural text that has no clear meaning undoubtedly makes possible multiple “readings”—or in our case, uses-of the text. Hence, as an open text, the Memorial in Berlin permits daily activities to take place in it and its environs.