324 is a site specific project created by Slovak visual artist and movie director Daniela Krajčová and studio Platform 1-12. Project, which was realized in the public space of the undperpass under the Bus station and Railway station in Topoľčany, is the authors´ reaction to the history of the place and to tragedy of Jewish Holocaust.

In the past, the original Jewish ghetto was located in the parts where the authors has realized the project. Approximately one third of the population in Topoľčany before the World War II. was Jewish. The deportations of Jews to the concentration camps during the World War II. followed by violent pogrom caused disappearance of the Jewish religious community from Topoľčany. There have been just one building preserved from the original Jewish ghetto. 2799 Jews from Topoľčany did not survive holocaust. The list of the victims was published by Yehoshua Robert Büchler in his book Židovská náboženská obec v Topoľčanoch: počiatky, rozvoj, zánik Yehoshua Robert Büchler (Slovenské národné múzeum - Múzeum židovskej kultúry, 1996). The list contains 324 Jewish surnames. Authors of the project has transferred this list onto walls of the underpass situated under one of the stations that the Jewish deportations took place from. 

The authors have invented their own visual code to display the surnames of Jewish victims on the walls -- so called „architectural alphabet". They have created visual codes of 24 basic letter of alphabet by splitting an historic picture of the New Synagogue in Topoľčany into 24 small fragments. The New Synagogue in Topoľčany was built in 19th century in neoclassical style and served its sacral function until the last Jews have disappeared  from Topoľčany in 1944. The architectural alphabet made of fragments of the historic picture of the building enabled the authors to combine them into the surnames. Afterwards they have applied the coded surnames on the walls of the underpass by using the technique of painting over the template. This way they created an unobtrusive decorative belt which is supplemented by the structure of human figures representing the number of deaths attributable to various surnames. The human figures have been re-drawn from the opening scene of movie Shop On Main Street (Ján Kadár, Elmar Klos, Československo, 1965), in which the citizens of small slovak town are walking around the square in a calm atmosphere before the start of Jewish transports.

The virtual re-installation of project "324" in augmented reality is the part of Asking Architecture -- Czech and Slovak Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia 2012.


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