Daniel Libeskind

Daniel Libeskind (born May 12, 1946, Łódź, Poland) is a Polish American architect known for introducing complex ideas and emotions into his designs.

Libeskind first studied music at the Łódź Conservatory, and in 1960 he moved to New York City on a music scholarship. Changing his artistic aims after arriving, he began to study architecture under John Hejduk and Peter Eisenman at Cooper Union. After receiving a master’s degree in the history and theory of architecture from the University of Essex, England (1972), he became known as an academic, especially for his time teaching at the Cranbrook Academy of Art (1978–85) in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Libeskind’s international reputation as an architect was solidified when in 1989 he won the competition to build an addition to the Berlin Museum that would house the city museum’s collection of objects related to Jewish history. Despite a decade of opposition through local politics, the building itself was completed in 1999 and opened as a museum in 2001. Libeskind, who lost most of his family in the Holocaust, worked to convey several levels of meaning in the building. The base of the complex runs in a broken, zigzag pattern, creating a floor plan that resembles the Star of David, which Jews were forced by the Nazis to wear displayed prominently on their clothing. Throughout the length of the museum runs a space known as the Void, which is a path of raw, blank concrete walls. Visitors can see the Void, but they cannot enter it or use it to access other parts of the museum; in this way it suggests both notions of absence and paths not taken. Angular slices of window allow light that creates a disorienting, almost violent feeling throughout the structure, while at the same time an adjacent sculpture garden creates a sense of meditative silence. Because the spatial experience is so powerful, many felt that the building might better serve as a memorial without any installations. Controversy swirled over this proposal until, in 2000–01, Libeskind remodeled the building somewhat to facilitate its museum function.

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On the basis of the recognition he earned for this project, Libeskind received a number of museum commissions in the late 1990s and early 21st century, including the Imperial War Museum North (1997–2001) in Manchester, England. In 2003 Libeskind won an international competition to rebuild the World Trade Center site in New York City. During the competition phase, much debate arose over whether a new, taller structure should be built or the site left untouched as a form of memorial. Libeskind’s plan thoughtfully addressed both these visions, combining a glass tower, designed to be the tallest in the world, with open memorial gardens that represent the “footprints” of the two fallen towers. His design was praised by both the architectural community and the general public, but commercial and safety concerns ultimately overrode the original design. Still further political and practical considerations influenced the redesign of the tower until all that remained of Libeskind’s vision was the overall height of the building: 1,776 feet (540 metres), a reference to the year in which the Declaration of Independence was approved by the U.S. Continental Congress.

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Libeskind continued to be sought after for Jewish projects. Among these were the interior of the Danish Jewish Museum (completed 2003) in Copenhagen, a glass courtyard (completed 2007) for the Jewish Museum in Berlin, and the Contemporary Jewish Museum (completed 2008) in San Francisco. He was also tapped for a variety of art museum buildings—including the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal (completed 2007), an extension of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto; and the Frederic C. Hamilton Building (opened 2006), an extension of the Denver Art Museum—and many other structures.

Libeskind’s later projects included the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre (completed 2010), City University of Hong Kong; the extension to the Museum of Military History (2001–11), Dresden, Germany; the Magnet housing development (2008–14), Tirana, Albania; the Ogden Center for Fundamental Physics (completed 2016) at Durham University, England; and MO Museum (completed in 2018), a modern art museum in Vilnius, Lithuania. Throughout his career Libeskind also designed sculptures, furniture, lighting, hardware, and other objects.