The Jewish museum by Daniel Libeskind - Essay Example

THE JEWISH MUSEUM BY DANIEL LIBESKIND Since the beginning of time people have built buildings that were intended to meet their needs for housing. This gave them shelter to protect themselves from the various weather conditions, wildlife and other dangers that lurked out in the wilds. As human needs have grown it has been necessary to create new and larger constructions. As a result, “specialists” for constructions have emerged and are now called architects. Architecture has developed and grown throughout history and in the last few decades some very exciting things have been happening. One of the most renowned architects in the 20th and 21st centuries is Daniel Libeskind. Many of his projects have been the reason for Libeskind to be accepted as one of the most creative architects of our generation. His buildings will exemplify distinctive characteristics for someone who admires them. A person sees these works and realises that only a master architect is behind all these attractive buildings. Daniel Libeskind was born in 12th of May, 1946, in Lodz, Poland. He was born at a difficult historic period for his country but also for the entire world, because he was born in a post-war period. Daniel was the second child of Nacham and Dora Libeskind. Both of his parents were Polish Jews who had survived the Holocaust. From a very early age, Libeskind showed that he was inclined towards Arts. At the age of eleven, he and his family immigrated to Tel Aviv, Israel. In Israel he began learning piano, on the America – Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship. Due to his musical studies he learned how to perform on a stage without making mistakes. This was a significant influence for him for his later way of working. In 1959, Daniel won an America – Israel Cultural Foundation scholarship, after which he and his family, decided to move on to the United States. That was the beginning of his engagement with architecture. In 1965 he completed high school and subsequently he decided to study architecture at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Daniel Libeskind is quoted for saying: “I consider education the most important thing for creativity, because if you have a mediocre education, with teachers who don’t really care, who don’t have any ideas of their own, who are just working nine to five, you are not encouraged to explore your own realms of creativity” (Myers and Gerstman 2007, p.48). As a person who likes to be creative and loves the arts, he used to spend most of his free time at the concerts, at free lectures, in parks and at museums. At the time he was studying architecture, he married Nina Lewis. They brought to life three children: Lev, Noam and Rachel. They also become business partners. Libeskind graduated from Cooper Union in 1970 but he did not stop his educational skills there. With his family they moved to the United Kingdom where he earned a master’s degree in history and theory of architecture at Essex University in Colchester. One of his views was that he did not want to imitate other architects’ ideas for design and architectural views and theories. He became a professor at the universities of Kentucky, Toronto (Canada) and London (England). At the age of thirty – two, Libeskind, accepted a job as a director of the prestigious Crandbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills. It was not satisfying though and he felt that he wanted to do something different. Seven years later, he quit his job as a director of Cranbrook Academy and moved with his family to Milan, Italy. Libeskind says: “Something compelled me to move there – perhaps the depth of the Italian culture that I had experienced to some degree.” (Myers and Gerstman 2007, p.49) In 1985 he established his own small school, in which he was the only professor. He tried to enrich an alternative to the classical way of working and an alternative to the traditional school. After all these years, it was time for Daniel Libeskind to begin his first project. When he moved to Berlin, Germany in 1989, he won the competition for the Jewish Museum, a project which took a decade to be completed. That was just the beginning for this master architect. Immediately after the Jewish Museum completed, Daniel Libeskind, received very important proposals for working in new projects. His first project superseded the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, England, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, the Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Felix Nussbaum Haus and the project at the World Trade Centre site, most known as Ground Zero, in New York City. The Zero Ground project was the culmination of a lifetime fo work which confirmed the abilities of Libeskind and he became the master site planner. As a person who had travelled and move on numerous times, to many countries around the world, he has been influenced by different cultures, persons, things (Myers and Gerstman 2007, p.46). Throughout his work, his architectural style can be characterized as postmodern. Postmodern architecture syndicates the old traditional style with new forms and ideas. The way that the shape and the details of a building are exposed, they are in unexpected ways. In other words, it is a new way of combining various and different styles of the previous architectural styles into one structure. Without a doubt, the Jewish Museum in Berlin was the benchmark of Daniel’s Libeskind career as it is one of the most well – known architects of his century. A new era for him started after he won an international competition for designing an addition to the existing Berlin Museum which was completed in 1735 and revamped in 1960. He competed with the project that he called “Between the Lines”. The name of his project came out of two lines of thinking; the relationship and the organization. The relationship line is a sinuous line but continuing and the other is a straight line, broken into many scraps. His architectural concept for the Jewish museum was motivated by four aspects. The first aspect was a collection of philosophical topics including urban revelation adjacent to One – Way Street, by Walter Benjamin. The second one is a part of Act 2 of opera by Moses and Aaron. Thirdly, it is the invisible and illogically connected star showing the relationship within Berlins and Jews. The last aspect of the museum was the two volumes Gedenkbuch which includes the names, birth dates, expulsion places and dates of all the Jews from Germany who were murdered in the course of Nazis’ period. As a part of his design for the competition, Libeskind, considered and focused on three major points. The first concept was about the structural form and the understanding of the history of Berlin, as it has been affected from the Jewish citizens of Berlin. This should include all the domains that concern a country as a state: economy, culture and education. The second concept was the requirement for him to make it accessible to all, both physically and mentally so that the meaning and the effect of the Holocaust in the memory of the citizens of Berlin was also a part of the memory of the city. The third was about the human future in Berlin and throughout all of Europe which would come from the recognition and the inclusion of an attempt to erase Jewish life in Berlin. Postmodern architectural style became one of the ways that Libeskind used to express the challenge of the project. As a world view, throughout all the historical periods, the classical and traditional designs were the main manners for the principals, the governments and the organizations which could have influenced to people and wished to depict authority and lasting strength. The Nazi’s used the classical design to represent their beliefs and as a sign of their mastery. This method has been applied to their buildings, which were symbols of threat and submission to authority over the individual. The ideology of the Nazis was the intention to create a master race which was similar to the desire in the period of classicism to perfect the rationality of man. In the classic period, all monuments were in perfect scale in order to reflect this desire. Libeskind, through the application of postmodern, achieved the theories of deconstructionism. Deconstructionism has the purpose to create a controlled chaos which intensifies the user perspicacity, and is classified by non – linear shapes, fragmentation and guidance of a structure’s façade. The circulation of the museum brings into being an alternative experience for the visitors, causing them to pause and speculate. Connected pathways and voids constitute the museum’s circulation. The existing building foundation ascends with the stair in the entrance which is through the Baroque Collegienhaus. The exterior shape of the building takes on the zigzag form or lightning bold. The shape of the building is only visible in aerial view, despite the fact that the bolt of lightning appears abrupt. Lighting and shadow, is another element that scars the asymmetric lineal windows and the façade providing light to the interior area of the museum. They are an implied comparison for all the difficult times and the suffering of pain of in the Jewish experience. Likewise, the shape of the structure could not be in a typical linear or in straight lines form due to the form of the site. The disorganized form is actually a contemplative treatment to the site which is connecting two streets. Another reason which justifies the long, pie – shaped and non rectilinear shape of it, is that there are protuberant trees all over the place. It is obvious that Libeskind did not want to destroy the physical environment of the site. A clear example, of this, is the visible application near the midpoint of the museum where it revolves twice to include a standing tree. To make his building more approachable to the site and the surrounding area and buildings, Libeskind limited the height of the building to an appropriate height of the neighbour building, the Baroque Collegienhaus. Furthermore, he built all the parts of structure apart from the street. For the communication of congregation and the façade, there are various courtyards which are created from the lightning bolts in the multisided façade. From the south site of the museum, the façade itself is created from zinc panels as it is drilled by splinters of window which slide across and offering light and shadow inside the museum. That is the reason why the pathway to the south provides the best advantageous position of the façade. Someone could tell that the way of panels’ arrangement and the shape of them, are haphazard, but they are bringing together the addresses of prestigious Jewish residents from the beginning to the end Berlin’s history. The choice of the materials for the façade is also relative to the Jewish being in Berlin, since the zinc panels will weather by the passage of time and as a consequence of the building will fade into the surrounding environment. The lines of the windows will eventually be noticeable as the light of the building dies away, separating as an eternal reminder of the Jewish past. Libeskind, situated the entrance of the extension building in a way that would be hidden from the street so that Collegienhaus’ entrance would be more significant and so tourists would prefer that entrance. At one time Daniel Libeskind thought to show respect to the historical monument by displaying no sensible connection between the two buildings. The entrance of the new museum is stately and you will see a concrete tower at the entrance. Inside that concrete tower there is a staircase that comes down to the basement. Here begins the different experience for the visitors. The first taste of that piece of art of what someone will see descending the staircase as it penetrates the pathway which passes through all floors of the classical building is that it will be tight, dark and ominous all the way. The pathway interconnects the two of the buildings while creating significant meaning in relationship to the themes that will be experienced in the display. The whole building construction and design is based on two main arranging principles: axes and voids. The axes and the voids inside the building “assist one another” since the voids go through the building on all levels, while the axes give forth the basement circulation. The axes of the Jewish Museum Berlin are one of the most notable things inside it. The concept about the formation, but also the story behind the axes makes them especially interesting. On the lower level, there are three main axes with each one symbolizing the three significant experiences of the Jewish existence: continuity, exile and death. Within the intermediate paths sits a triangular shaped island which makes it only possible to view two of them at the same time. The Axis of Continuity or the Stair of Continuity is the first path and the longest from the other two. It steers to the second level where the permanent exhibition is by way of the staircase. The end of this axis is where a partial view of another staircase holds the primary line of sight but without giving any clues where it will close as one completes the route. At the same point of the area, it is easy to identify the full three stories that the staircase provides. In addition, they cut through by slanting concrete slabs and lit only by crevice in the façade. The width of the staircase does not change as the axis gives the space a raised emphasis from the vertical. It is the only axis which is a continued lane, symbolizing the hope of the perpetuity of Jewish history in the future. The other two axes are not so long as the first axe which terminates in a blind alley. Nevertheless, they still have their own important meaning and particular journey’s end. The second perceivable path from the main entrance is the Axis of Exile. It is directly connected with the Garden of Exile and Emigration, which it is at the end of the route in a slight turn to the right. When you enter the garden the feelings which are created lead to a detached and embarrassed experience. Likewise, it is an ideal example of a deconstructionist design. More specific, the garden has 49 concrete pillars on it composed of a 7x7 square grid. Every concrete pillar has a tree at the top of it, defining hope for the future. As a part of representing the feeling of unknown through the emigration and the disorientation of its corresponding corporeal, Libeskind, designed the ground and the columns to incline about 10 degrees in diagonal from the subsurface entrance calling into existence an extra – ordinary feeling. The Garden of Exile is located outside the Jewish Museum and although it is accessed through the museum it is away from it. It forces the visitors to turn back and go again through the Axis of Exile and back to the triangular island where the three paths get together. This is the only way from the three routes where the lower level, the Axis of the Holocaust, is accessible. The indicated axis is invisible from the principal entrance stair. The garden constitutes the only distinct geometrical part of the whole building. It is an ironic way for Libeskind to represent that his ideology is against Hitler’s beliefs and ambitions about having the master race. The third axis, the Axis of Holocaust, ends up to an area outside of the museum’s main structure. At the end of it, there is a tower named the Tower of Holocaust. It is also a separate part of the residual building and made by concrete but it does not have finished matt zinc as the principal façade. In addition the tower is only approachable by way of one path. The axis of it directs to a black door at the end of the foyer. The hallway consists of scratched floors and gradient walls. The feeling of perturbation is once again diffused wherever you look around. As a structure form the tower keeps in balance an out of sight symmetry with the entrance tower of the Collegienhaus museum. The Tower of Holocaust is a 24m concrete structure. It mostly looks like a concrete shell and at one edge has an acute angle. There are not any exhibitions inside it, but an empty space. The light enters through a slit at the top of the tower. Due to this, there is not enough light inside of it and the place is quite dark. The meaning of the dark and empty space is that the Holocaust effected people physically and mentally so that they felt sad and depleted. As is mentioned above the second principal for the arranging of the museum is voids. All over the main building the voids are strongly visible. At the end of the Axis of Continuity the idea of void is well – defined. Moreover, the lightning bolt shape of the building defines its structure form and there is another straight line piercing the zig – zag line. This point is also only noticeable from the aerial view. At every point, there is a tower, each 20 metres tall and at the top of it there are two skylights allowing to the sunlight access inside the building. Just as every part of the museum has a different meaning about the Jewish being, so the six towers show the emptiness left by the immigration of the Jewish through the period of the Holocaust and after it. They are all in a separate part of the main building as the Tower of the Holocaust and Garden of Exile. The six towers are another application of voids. Only the last one of them is an exception, but all of them are unconditioned space. The Void of Memory is the last void which is crafted of steel faces covering all over the floor and visitors have to walk on it to move in the space. All the faces portray the victims of the Holocaust, trying to “resurrect”. In general, the experience of voids is visible throughout the building and has been applied to all its levels. The voids in connection with erasure interweave all through the Jewish Museum Berlin, to represent once again the interface and the coexistence between the Barlinese and Jewish history. In addition, they make a different sense of the exhibition space, since they are breaking the exhibition to time intervals. The exhibition includes images and objects of Jewish in their everyday life and all the physical exhibits are quite small. However, visitors can see the voids through the pathway, via windows rhythmically placed alongside the circulation route as they admire the exhibitions. Also, the way of representing the Jewish being and experience juxtapose in different experiences: the tangible. Libeskind, achieved this by the periodically leading back – and – forth between the exhibits. The Jewish Museum in Berlin is a “temple” for the Jewish people and history. Throughout his architectural design, Daniel Libeskind, manages to show the cultural, the society and the habits of the Jews. These, have been achieved not only from the design of the museum and the exhibitions inside it, but also with the materials that have been used to create this piece of art. The whole building is a mixture of different line styles, each one typify a story or a significant period for Jewish existence. It could not be easy for any architect to achieve the design of such an intricate structure that underlies non- vertical walls, non- rectilinear lines and a very different way to provide sunlight inside the museum. Moreover, his choice of using postmodern architectural style as the main form for the building was directly related to the time period. Passing through all the pathways of the museum you can realise and understand the feelings, the fears and the way which Jewish people have been treated before and after the Holocaust. Without a doubt, Daniel Libeskind became a master architect by virtue of his first project. It is a real jewel for the Berlin, since the museum holds a large piece of the history of the city, but also of the whole world. Libeskind is a promising architect with many notable projects and many others to supersede them. He says: “Creativity, to me, is the future of the world. Creativity means individuality. If we lose creativity, we also lose individuality. And if individuality is lost, then the world is finished – it becomes just a machine. The human spirit has to prevail.” (Mears and Gerstman 2007, p.55) Bibliography: Bitter, Jan (2011) Daniel Libeskind Jewish Museum Berlin, Ediciones Poligrafa: Barcelona. Daniel Libeskind, Britannica [Online], Available: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/914364/Daniel-Libeskind Daniel Libeskind Biography’, Notable Biographies.[Online], Available: http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Li-Ou/Libeskind-Daniel.html Jewish Museum Berlin by Daniel Libeskind, KBerry [online], Available: http://kberry.wordpress.ncsu.edu/ Jewish Museum Berlin, Daniel Libeskind [Online], Available: http://daniel-libeskind.com/projects/jewish-museum-berlin Judisches Museum Berlin / Jewish Museum Berlin, Culture Vulture. [Online], Available: http://www.culturevulture.net/ArtandArch/JewishMuseumBerlin.htm Meyers, Herb and Richard Gerstman (2007). Creativity : unconventional wisdom from 20 accomplished minds , Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke Read More