building and the redesigned historic grounds were opened to the public on 7 May 2010. History After the demolition of the ruins in the 1950s, the area was used as a bumper car site and a dumping ground for rubble from the renovation of Kreuzberg. The plans for a memorial site on the former site of the Gestapo goes back to 1978, when Berlin architecture critic Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm was one of the first to note, in essays and surveys, the significance of the former site of the Gestapo, SD and RSHA headquarters. The first exhibition on the site's history was created for the 750th anniversary of Berlin in 1987. The research continued after it, leading to a documentation centre that collected some more evidence for the terror of the National Socialists in Germany. In 1992, a foundation was created for the construction and maintenance of the centre with an associated permanent exhibition. The managing director is Rabbi Andreas Nachama. A tender in 1993 to design the museum complex was won by the Pritzker Prize-winning Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. Based on the temporary exhibition building, his design was likened to the skeleton of a barracks, allowing light through the glazed gaps in the concrete beams. Although critically acclaimed, the structure proved expensive to build and when the original contractor became insolvent in the middle of construction, no other contractor willing to continue the project for the fixed fee could be found. With the city of Berlin unwilling to pay an additional three to five million Euros for a reduced design and funding from the federal government delayed until more progress was achieved, the site was left with just the concrete stairwells of the design. Having spent 13.9 million Euros already, these were demolished, despite the protests of Zumthor and other architects, in 2004. Architectural design competition 2005 In June 2005 a new architectural design competition was launched following the aborted partial construction of Zumthor's design. Out of 309 submitted and 23 chosen drafts, architect Ursula Wilms from the Berlin architects office Heinle, Wischer and Partner and landscape architect Heinz W. Hallmann from Aachen won in January 2006 the final round. The draft included a two-storey, ashlar-formed, paned building with an available surface of 3,500 square metres. For the construction around €15 million was available. Another five to nine million Euro was used for the interior and the redevelopment of the historical