The Last
Nuclear Bomb Memorial

Competition introduction

Competition organisers

With the future in such a state of uncertainty and political relationships more strained than ever, there is one silent threat that could end up being more deadly and dangerous to humanity than a hundred pandemics: nuclear weapons.

It’s been 75 years since the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively ending World War II and killing well over 100,000 people, the majority of whom were civilians. The bombing of Nagasaki was the second and final time a country deployed a nuclear weapon in combat. However, it wasn’t the last nuclear explosion, as testing of controlled explosions continued for years.


[left] The Trinity explosion; [right] Wrecked framework of the Museum of Science and Industry in Hiroshima, Japan 1945 © Everett Collection
Though officially banned in 2009, the US president was recently reported in the Washington Post to be discussing conducting the first US nuclear test explosion since 1992. This follows the Trump administration’s decision earlier this year to pull out of the ‘Open Skies Arms Control’ treaty which allows the US and Russia to fly over each other’s territory with elaborate sensor equipment to assure that they are not preparing for military action. These decisions could have serious consequences for US relations with other nuclear powers, as well as reverse a decades-long suspension of such activities.


Data from: Arms Control Association Source: Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Kordas, U.S. Department of State, and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
On the recent anniversary of the bombing, Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue called on Japanese President Shinzo Abe and the central government to sign and ratify the 2017 United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We support the call for a ban on nuclear weapons and are asking the international architecture community to create designs for "The Last Nuclear Bomb Memorial / Edition No 2".

For this architecture competition, participants are tasked with creating a memorial in a decommissioned nuclear weapon testing site. In response to the global silence surrounding the issue of nuclear weapons, participants in “The Last Nuclear Bomb Memorial / Edition No 2” competition must submit their designs with NO DESCRIPTION TEXT. Their architecture ideas must be communicated strictly with visuals. We are asking participants to design a building or structure in which the architecture would do all the talking.


The Last Nuclear Bomb Memorial / Edition No 2 competition must submit their designs with NO DESCRIPTION TEXT; Choose a site from the list (available for download below) of top testing sites for the world’s strongest nuclear weapons.
Download full competition brief for more information!

Competition is open to all. No professional qualification is required. Design proposals can be developed individually or by teams (4 team members maximum). Correspondence with organizers must be conducted in English; All information submitted by participants must be in English.