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B.Sc.

Built Environment Studies Year 3

AUD3222 Contemporary Approaches to Architecture

Assignment
Martina Cutajar
34393(M)

Daniel Libeskind

Contents
Introduction

Case Studies
The Jewish Museum

World Trade Centre Masterplan

Argument

End Space

Connections

Optimistic Architecture

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Democratic Architecture

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Conclusion

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References

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Introduction
Daniel Libeskind is an international figure in the field of Architecture and Urban Design. He was born in Ldz,
Poland, and immigrated with his family as a teenager, when they settled in the Bronx, New York. Before the
start of his path into architecture, he received a scholarship to perform as a musical virtuoso, which he left in
order to study architecture.
In this day and age, Libeskind is often described as being one of the architecture professions elite. He has
had projects all over the world, some of which were of a significantly high profile, and was also awarded a
number of prizes.
Libeskind is most known for evoking memory and the past in new buildings, extensions and other proposals.
His first high profile work, The Jewish Museum in Berlin, is a seminal work that took around a decade to
complete. After this, a series of influential museum commissions followed.
With such a high profile, however, do come in the critics, and he has been both critically acclaimed and also
criticised in his work. In the London Times he was referred to as a global brand in an article by Tom
Dyckhoff.
By simply looking at Daniel Libeskinds works, one is confronted with very new, technological looking and
radical buildings. It is the purpose of this essay to understand why his works look like they do; what informs
the architects work and what motivates him to create these structures that look like something from the
future.
Certainly, Libeskinds designs wont appeal to all, especially so in their particular aesthetic. In fact, many
critics accuse Libeskind in the work he does as being a way of promoting his own brand and developing a
celebrity status. He has also, however, been critically lauded as an original thinker; the work and writings
definitely have been the subject of a number of articles and exhibitions.
In this essay, a few aspects are going to be discussed and argued, including: Daniel Libeskinds theory and
understanding of architecture, why his architecture looks like it does and what he aims to do with his
architecture, in his own view, in the reaction of the general public and in the view of critics.
In order to do this, two of his seminal works are going to be taken into consideration as Case Studies; as
examples of the architects designs and to support to some of the arguments. These projects are: the Jewish
Museum of Berlin and the new Masterplan for the World Trade Centre in New York.

Case Studies

The Jewish Museum, Berlin


Daniel Libeskinds proposal for the Jewish Museum in Berlin won the competition for the design of this
museum in 1989. It was a proposal that was deemed to have come into the architectural scene as a new
species of architecture; spatially and materially, almost impossible to assimilate into known architectural
typologies.
The new construction is meant to link the building to the museums other structures and open spaces, not
only structurally but also thematically.
This one-storey construction is located near the site of the original Prussion Court of Justice building, which
now serves as the entrance to the new building. Within its purposes, this new design offers library space,
archives, an education centre and additional office space, storage and support for the museum.
To enter the building, the visitor enters the Baroque Kollegienjaus and consequently goes down a stairway
through the Entry Void into the underground. Above ground, the autonomy of the new and old structure is
preserved, but underground, they are tied together.
After the descent into the new structure, the visitor is faced with three separate routes. The first of these
leads to the Holocaust Tower a dead end. The second takes the visitor out of the building and into the
Garden of Exile and Emigration, in a recollection of those who were forced to leave Berlin. The third, longest
path leads to the Stair of Continuity, up to the exhibition spaces of the Museum, thus emphasizing the
continuum of history.
In the zigzagging plan of the building, a void cuts through, creating a space where absence is embodied. In its
impenetrability, it is the central focus around which exhibitions are organized. Onto this void, around 60
bridges open onto it.

Photo Guenter Schneider


Extracted from http://www.arcspace.com/features/daniel-libeskind/academyof-the-jewish-museum/ on 21-04-2015

Photo BitterBredt
Extracted from www10.aeccafe.com on 21-04-2015

The Masterplan for the World Trade Centre, New York

In 2002, Studio Libeskinds design called Memory Foundations won the commission to develop the area in
lower Manhattan, New York, that was destroyed by the terrorist attack of 9/11.
In the design process of the master plan, Libeskind emphasised the importance he gave to working in close
contact with all the stakeholders involved in the project.
In his design, Libeskin dedicated half of the site to public space, which is defined by the Memorial and the
Memorial Museum. Along with that, locations where also set aside for a number of things, including; the
needed high-tech towers, the addition of retail, reconnecting transit concourses as well as a new
transportation station and a performing arts centre. This was all done whilst keeping in mind the restoration
of the original street grid plan.
The 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero was one of the first parts to be completed. It features two large square
pools on the sunken site, where water falls down within. Whilst there were separate architects working on
the specific things within the master plan, Libeskind mentioned in an article1 how the waterfalls were in the
initial project proposal. It was his idea that there had to be a screen of sound. This would shelter the
memorial from the bustling streets whilst introducing sounds of nature.
Next, the Memorial Museum opened in spring of 2014. It features underground galleries which expose the
slurry wall that survived the terrorist attack, as testimony and tribute to the strength in Americas
foundations.
The rest of the project is slowly coming along, with the Transportation Hub well on the way and one of the
World Trade towers scheduled to open in 2015. In general, it definitely was a long way until the design for
the whole project was finalised; due to many factors that go into a project as prominent as this one.

Photo 1 Joe Woolhead and Photo 2 Silverstein Properties Extracted from


http://www.archdaily.com/272280/ground-zero-master-plan-studio-daniel-libeskind/ on 21-04-2015

Architecture that inspires

In a talk Libeskind gave, entitled Architecture is a language, he speaks about what informs his work, what
motivates his architecture.
Libeskind sees Architecture as a universal language of inspiration. Inspiration speaks all languages
everyone understands it. It is that all people can understand it that is the purpose with which he designs
new buildings. To Libeskind, a new building performs in a number of ways. It is an opportunity to generate a
new energy for a social cultural space, to affect people and make them think. It serves to seek the all elusive
purpose of architecture the undefined.
The work he produces follows this motivation in a number of ways, some distinctive, some abstract and
some are reflected in the way he approaches a project.

End Space
In the essay End Space from Theories and Manifestoes, a text extracted from Daniel Libeskind: Between
Zero and Infinity, the architect writes about the architectural drawings and text in the exploration and
creation of architecture. Drawings have somewhat depleted in use, and Libeskind states that they have
become the fixed and silent collaborators in the overwhelming endeavour of building and construction.
Drawing is not simple a means to invention. To Libeskind, it is an experience of the other.
Being neither pure registration nor pure creation, these drawings come to resemble an explication or a
reading of a pre-given text a text both generous and inexhaustible.
In a TED talk that Libeskind gave, he compares drawing to a score of music it signifies and portrays
proportions, light, materiality. It is the same in buildings and architecture. Drawing is the source of
architecture more than that, it seems like for Libeskind, it is the source of experience that his architecture
proposes.

Photo Studio Libeskind - Extracted from http://libeskind.com/work/ground-zero-master-plan/ on 21-04-2015

It is the hand itself, the hand, the eye, the mind all interconnected. It is a process which isnt purely
intellectual but is something spiritual, desire and faith in something you cannot see proof of something that
is really there but not purely visible.
In the work of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, even the plan of the work lends itself to the conception of
architecture through drawing as an experience. Even within the building it is unexpected, there are dead
ends, bridges and not to mention the distinctive zig-zagging plan. If anything, Libeskinds architecture is
something that gives experience because it is so unique, but also unexpected.

Photos Studio Libeskind - Extracted from http://libeskind.com/work/ground-zero-master-plan/ on 01-05-2015

One might say that as a result his designs look radical and raw. They are also at most of the time very
complex and expressive. This somewhat reflects the abstract nature of his texts and so, his thought process
and the way he describes architecture. The way he thinks about architecture also greatly reflects that fact
that he is greatly motivated by music and poetry since he was also a musician and wrote.
It reflects the way Libeskind thinks about architecture as a complex organism an extension of us, in a
sense.
Our lives are complex; our emotions are complex; our intellectual desires are complex. I believe that
architecture needs to mirror that complexity in every single space that we have, in every intimacy that we
possess.
It is certainly not uncommon in theory of architecture that the issue of complexity arises. In Robert Venturis
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, he writes about the tendency of orthodox modern architects
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not to recognize complexity consistently and sufficiently. By idealizing the primitive and elementary in an
attempt to break with tradition and for a fresh start, they do this at the expense of the sophisticated and
diverse.
I speak of complex and contradictory architecture based on the richness and ambiguity of modern
experience, including experience which is inherent in art. - Robert Venturi
Architecture is able to create emotion. A building that radiates something beyond itself there is no
impossibility in what it expresses. Libeskind, like Venturi isnt a fan of blatant simplification, and tends to
favour complexity and richness of meaning rather than clarity of meaning. Libeskind believes that
architecture should be expressive, unexpected and memorable. He defines that the silent building as a
myth the myth of Louis Khan. He says that he believes buildings should communicate across various
borders.
In a way, these attributes and approaches that feature prominently in Libeskinds work shows architecture
not as something that blends in with us and nature and history; but taking these into consideration and with
them create an experience that grows out of itself like the complexity we are and nature is.
A valid architecture evokes many levels of meaning and combinations of focus: its space and its elements
become readable and workable in several ways at once. Robert Venturi

Connections
Through this evident uniqueness in Libeskinds architecture, it is clear that bringing this individuality to
architecture is essential in the architects work. Libeskind believes that it is necessary in order for the world
not to be homogenised which it shouldnt be.
Libeskind does in the initial stages by addressing the unique aspects to the site proposed. Libeskind
describes the need to dramatically innovate with architecture and create new meanings, look for new
approaches. This is described by the architect as an almost elite ambition to bring uniqueness to
architecture and get out of this generic idea of modernism an approach that essentially resulted in
homogenous buildings.
In this way he refers to the common criticism again modernism of everything ending up looking the same.
This idea of architecture in a contemporary setting directly relates to Kenneth Framptons Critical
Regionalism in a few aspects. In Framptons essay, he makes a case for an architecture with elements that
derive from the peculiarities of a particular place. He also makes a case against the modernist myth of
progress and regressing to the past, which is very similar to Libeskinds architectural theory.
When dealing with the initial stages of a project, Libeskind states that besides the obvious aspects of a site,
he finds this need to delve deep into the context physical, emotional, historical of the place. He looks
behind the site, below the site, up in the air over the site, in the smokes of the chimneys that went over the
clouds. He looks at and thinks about the invisible aspects to a place, how it came to be how it is and what it
went through, even if it is not directly visible at that time. He describes this as drawing the matrix of what
happened there.
What was it across the abyss that connected us today to that site?
Things should be evidently led from this point because it is so that one gets the right feel of a place, as in fact
Libeskind showed with respect to the site of the new master plan for the World Trade Centre. The feel of
place and the gravity of what happened is not something that one can easily experience through images only

Photo Joe Woodhead - Extracted from http://libeskind.com/work/ground-zero-master-plan/ on 01-05-2015

it is hard to understand the density of human physicality that was destroyed in the attack. Libeskind
describes his own reaction to the site of Ground Zero as visceral.
In his work Libeskind puts importance on the more abstract and vague concepts in architecture the need to
address more than what is purely physical. Addressing the memory of a place is definitely something that is
highlighted in a number of his talks and interviews. Of course, it is essential, he is most known for dealing
with museums and memorials but not only those.
Even a program which is as humble as a private house should, in my view, refer to other things, not just to
the apparent, but lets call it the less visible, the less audible, which is part of this context.

Optimistic Architecture
Architecture is the optimist profession. Libeskind believes that while in certain professions it is possible to be
pessimistic, one cannot be a pessimistic architect. Architecture is always leaning towards building a better
future.
That was the first experience Libeskind had in architecture with the Jewish Museum. It was not about the
building because a building is just a means but how to you bring back the idea of what happened to Europe
eradication of culture, of people, of cities. There was the question of how to bring not the past that
cannot be unmade, you can never go back to the past but how to have hope be featured in architecture.
Without hope and optimism, how would you transcribe a history that is fatal disastrous and carve it into a
space of the soul.
We go to these cities that have been devastated by history and have to find some Archimedean points so
to speak to move forward. To open up discourse and new routes, to past, dead ends, continuities across
obstacles, to gardens.
It is also a question of how to assert life and the potential of resistance. It was like this when Libeskind was
designing the site for the World trade Centre. The intent and aim that came through is not only for it to
commemorate the horrible attacks, but to also give an inspiring place at the same time.

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This is done by highlighting Americas strong foundations and pointing towards a bright future. The memorial
and memorial museum feature remains that survived the attacks, they commemorate those who died and
its all set in a positive space that is designed as an open, public area for people of New York to enjoy.
This whole project was as a matter of fact criticized by Michael Sorkin especially, as being business as
usual, with considerable area being dedicated to office towers, retail and more economy oriented uses.
Both Michael Sorkin and Paul Goldberg suggested that nothing should happen in the short term within this
site which couldnt really be done.
First off, economically, it is not worth it for developers. And in the end, architecture as Libeskind believes it
should be, has the power and the intense need, to be optimistic. It relates back to an architecture of
inspiration, one of hope. By leaving the World Trade Centre as is, destroyed and barren, would accomplish
nothing.
Through optimism there is also this new image of the city that is being proposed as a consequence, it is not
just the building. The optimism is how to really embody a new spirit in a city. Even a small object can
transform how you feel, how you see and how new generations view these historic places and happenings as
a result.

Democratic Architecture
Due to how Libeskinds architecture looks, many people do not tend to readily accept it. This is evident from
the wide array of comments that one finds about Libeskinds work. While at this point in time, most on the
basis of opinions rather than facts, many accuse Libeskind that he designs how he does to promote his own
brand of architecture, in its very distinctive and radical nature, to raise his own celebrity.
Some of Daniel Libeskinds works are placed within entirely different contexts to what his designs seem to
portray for example, the new Jewish Museum in Berlin is located next to a 1753 building in a Baroque
style. This makes it obvious to see why people would criticize Libeskind and be against such futuristic
architecture, which at first glance, might not seem to fit in at all.
But there will always be this problem with new architecture, especially with Libeskinds approach of
expression and creating memorable architecture. People love the past, they tend to want to bring back the
past. Change is often not readily accepted.
With regards to this matter, Libeskind says himself that it is obvious that people tend to be very conservative
at times it is because they love their city. One can see where he is coming from.
Consider the Impressionists. Even though it is Art, not Architecture, it is this concept that I advocate for
certain great things that present change, are most often universally identified as truly important much after
they happen. Perhaps, this is one of those moments, and I believe that an open mind is essential when
judging new architecture. One cannot simply condemn it because it simply does not look like the tried and
tested architecture of the past and the buildings that already exist.
It is perhaps even due to this that Libeskind talks about the importance to include the public in architectural
projects. Architecture is public and people will be affected by it. Architecture is Democratic.
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In his Design for the World Trade Centre, Libeskind describes in an interview how difficult it was, dealing
with all the different people who took interest in the project and had thoughts and feelings about what
should happen. But it is necessary architecture is in the end is public art, and people should be at least
allowed to understand it.
According to Libeskind, the notion of the architect as the solo visionary is very old fashioned. A successful
contemporary architect is one who is able to engage with the client.
In post-modern approaches in architecture, this has been most evident in many theories. Most notably, in
Lbeskind approach, he believes that architecture should be non-homogenous so as to let people put their
own mark on it and vice versa.

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Conclusion
All in all, Libeskinds theory and approach to architecture is a very valid post-modern motivation to bring
technology into the personal and human and humanising aspects of complexity, expression and emotion.
On a certain level, he is proposing architecture that is of the contemporary world. It is an architecture that in
his view encompasses all different facets, obvious and not obvious that go into architecture and are affected
by it. It is an all-inclusive theory where he combines all these aspects together to create unique and personal
architecture that is specific to the particular place it is situated in.
Whilst there are many ways in which this theory could be manifested, his particular aesthetic is in the end an
expression. It is the architects expression, no doubt, but it is also an expression of society and culture today;
and it reflects a lot about it. But what does it reflect about society? Almost all his projects were
commissioned and directed by someone, if accepted by the public, by a commissions board or otherwise.
What it actually says, that is certainly very subjective in its tone and nature.

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References

Abc.net.au,. (2015). Architecture profile: Daniel Libeskind. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/legacy/programs/atoday/stories/s229284.htm
Architecturemps.com,. (2015). Back Issues | Architecture_MPS. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from
http://architecturemps.com/back-issues/
Arcspace.com,. (2012). Academy of the Jewish Museum - Daniel Libeskind. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from
http://www.arcspace.com/features/daniel-libeskind/academy-of-the-jewish-museum/
Arcspace.com,. (2012). Academy of the Jewish Museum - Daniel Libeskind. Retrieved 15 April 2015, from
http://www.arcspace.com/features/daniel-libeskind/academy-of-the-jewish-museum/
Cbc.ca,. (2015). Love it or hate it, Libeskind's Denver gallery has impact. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/love-it-or-hate-it-libeskind-s-denver-gallery-has-impact-1.573035
Chalcraft, E. (2013). Daniel Libeskind rails at architects "building gleaming towers for despots".Dezeen. Retrieved 18
April 2015, from http://www.dezeen.com/2013/02/25/libeskind-rails-at-architects-building-gleaming-towers-fordespots/
Cornell.edu,. (2011). Counterpoint - CornellCast. Retrieved 16 April 2015, from http://www.cornell.edu/video/daniellibeskind-counterpoint
Libeskind,. (1999). Jewish Museum Berlin - Libeskind. Retrieved 15 April 2015, from http://libeskind.com/work/jewishmuseum-berlin/
Libeskind,. (1999). Work - Libeskind. Retrieved 14 April 2015, from http://libeskind.com/work/
Libeskind,. (2003). World Trade Center Master Plan - Libeskind. Retrieved 15 April 2015, from
http://libeskind.com/work/ground-zero-master-plan/
Notablebiographies.com,. Daniel Libeskind Biography - life, family, childhood, children, parents, name, history, school,
young. Retrieved 15 April 2015, from http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Li-Ou/Libeskind-Daniel.html
Vinnitskaya, I. (2013). Ground Zero Master Plan / Studio Daniel Libeskind. ArchDaily. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from
http://www.archdaily.com/272280/ground-zero-master-plan-studio-daniel-libeskind/
What if? Dunedin...,. (2015). Daniel Libeskind, on the scope of architecture. Retrieved 15 April 2015, from
https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2015/01/30/daniel-libeskind-on-the-scope-of-architecture/
Winston, A. (2014). Ignore critics, Beethoven was "a failure" to them too, says Libeskind. Dezeen. Retrieved 18 April
2015, from http://www.dezeen.com/2014/04/11/ignore-the-critics-beethoven-was-a-failure-in-their-eyes-too-saysdaniel-libeskind-interview-milan-2014/

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