The Architecture of Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museums

Abstract:

Memorial architecture faces the special challenge of commemorating the absent; Jewish museums deal with an extra problematic history of high sensitivity. This paper examines and compares Daniel Libeskind’s architectural solutions to the cultural and political challenges in each of the three Jewish museums that he designed in Berlin, San Francisco and Copenhagen. The focus is on how the architecture institutionalizes the web of political relationships attached to the particular museum and delivers the museum’s message. It will be concluded that Libeskind has used space to address visitors bodily and affectively, control their behavior and help them see what the museums want them to see; the museums’ spatial existence can never really be independent of their contents. Light will be shed on the future of museum architecture: the trend is for museums designed for an expressive experience, involving movement, rather than the static enjoyment of single works of art.

• Periodical: Applied Mechanics and Materials (Volumes 174-177)
• Pages: 1812-1819
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.174-177.1812
• Online since: May 2012
• Authors: Hao Jiang, Si Jia Jiang
• Keywords: Daniel Libeskind, Jewish Museum, Memorial Architecture, Museum Design

References

[1] Gruber, D.R.E. Virtually Jewish: reinventing Jewish culture in Europe, California: University of California Press (2002), p.157

[2] ibid.

[3] idem., p.155

[4] Henning, Michelle Museums, Media and Cultural Theory Maidenhead, England: Open University Press (2006), p.13

[5] Young, James Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin: The Uncanny Arts of Memorial Architecture in Jewish social studies, Volume: 6, Issue: 2 (January 1, 2000), p.1

DOI: 10.1353/jss.2000.0007

[6] Libeskind, Daniel Between the Lines: Extension to the Berlin Museum, with the Jewish Museum in Assemblage : a critical journal of architecture and design culture , Volume: 0, Issue: 12 (August 1990), pp: 18-57

DOI: 10.2307/3171115

[7] Young, (2000), p.23

[8] ibid.

[9] Mission", Contemporary Jewish Museum San Francisco Website, http://www.thecjm.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&view=article&id=3

[10] Information on official Daniel Libeskind website http://daniel-libeskind.com/

[11] Henning, (2000), p.61

[12] Adams, N Studio Daniel Libeskind skews walls and slants floors in a formar boathouse to heighten the experience of the DANISH JEWISH MUSEUM in Copenhagen in Architectural record, Volume: 192, Issue: 10 (October 1, 2004), pp: p.140, 6p

[13] Libeskind, (1990)

[14] Henning, (2006), p.91

[15] Smith, Charles Saumarez Architecture and the Museum: The Seventh Reyner Banham Memorial Lecture in Journal of design history, Volume: 8, Issue: 4 (1995), pp: 243-256