DANIEL LIBESKIND

Unit 1 Architecture and Meaning

• Born : May 12 , 1946

• Nationality : Polish American

• Founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina,

and is its principal design architect

• 1965 - Libeskind became a United States citizen

• He is renowned for his ability to evoke cultural memory in

buildings.

“Architecture tells a story about the world, our desires and dreams. Architecture and the buildings are
much more than a place, they are destinations meant to evoke emotion and to make you think about the
world we all live in”.

“Buildings and Urban projects are crafted with perceptible human energy and that they speak to the
larger cultural community in which they are built”.
 • Libeskind learned to play the accordion and quickly
became a virtuoso, performing on Polish
television in 1953.
• Won a prestigious America Israel Cultural
Foundation scholarship in 1959 and played
alongside a young Itzhak Perlman.
• Libeskind lived in Poland for 11 years and can still
speak, read, and write the Polish language
• 1957- moved to Kibbutz Gvat, Israel and then to Tel
Aviv before moving to New York in 1959.

Early Life
 • He attended the Bronx High School of
Science.
• He left music to study architecture,
receiving his professional architectural
degree in 1970 from the Cooper Union for
the Advancement of Science and Art in New
York City.
• He received a postgraduate degree in
History and Theory of Architecture at the
School of Comparative Studies at Essex
University (England) in 1972.

Education
• 1972 -  Was hired to work at Peter Eisenman’s New York Institute for
Architecture and Urban Studies but he almost quit immediately
• 1980 - Started his practical architectural career in Milan. Designed
major cultural, commercial and residential projects around the world
which includes the master plan for the World Trade Centre and the
Jewish Museum Berlin.
Military History Museum - Dresden

• 2011 - His firm, Studio Daniel Libeskind, completed its redesign of

what is now Germany’s largest museum, the Military History
Museum in Dresden.
• Hong Kong’s City University celebrated the opening of the
Libeskind-designed Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre.
• On February 27, 2003, Libeskind won the competition to be the
master plan architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade
Centre site in Lower Manhattan. Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre

Work Experience
 DECONSTRUCTIVISM

• Characterized by ideas of fragmentation , manipulating ideas of structures of skin, non

rectilinear shapes which serves to distort and dislocate some elements of architecture such
as structure and envelope.
• Deconstructing is to deform a rationally structured space so that the elements within that
space are forced into new relationship. It features a lot of chopping up, layering and
fragmenting.
• The theory of deconstruction from Derrida’s work argues that it “is not a style or attitude’
but rather a mode of questioning though and about the technologies, formal devices, social
institutions and founding metaphors of representation”.
• He aims to create architecture that is resonant, unique and sustainable.

Philosophy
 CLASSIFICATION OF DESIGN CHARATERISTICS

Deconstruction Style

Layering Angular Organic Chaos

(Curvilinear)

Philosophy
 BETWEEN THE LINES
Libeskind’s intention was to express kaleidoscopically the city’s lines and cracks in architectural form.
The confrontation of Libeskind’s Jewish Museum building with the adjoining classical building by
Berlin City Architect, Mendelson not only defines two highlights of 20 th century but also reveals the
stratigraphy of a historical landscape – exemplary exposure of the relationship of Jews and Germans in
this city.
“The Jewish Museum us conceived as an emblem in which the Invisible and the Visible are the
structural features which have been gathered in this space of Berlin and laid bare in an architecture
where the unnamed remains the name which keeps still”.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 INTRODUCTION
• The Jewish Museum Berlin, which opened to the public in 2001, exhibits the social, political and cultural history
of the Jews in Germany from the fourth century to the present, explicitly presenting and integrating, for the
first time in post war Germany, the repercussions of the Holocaust.

• The new building is housed next to the site of the

original Prussian Court of Justice building which was
completed in 1735 now serves as the entrance to the new
building.

Three insights: 
• To understand the history of Berlin without understanding the enormous contributions made by its Jewish
citizens;
• Meaning of the Holocaust must be integrated into the consciousness and memory of the city of Berlin;
• Future, the City of Berlin and the country of Germany must acknowledge the erasure of Jewish life in its
history.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 CONCEPT

The concepts are developed from two perceptions.

Uncanny feeling – established in the mind

and which has become allenated from it only
through repression. The uncanny is
something which ought to have remained
hidden but has come to light just like the
history of the Jews. The idea of their homely
home has become unhomly, just like a
haunted house because of their absence.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 CONCEPT

• The building’s overall composition is that

of a distorted Star of David, with a
straight “void” running through the
length of the building.
• Heavy with symbolism and metaphor, the
building uses fragmentation, void, and
disorientation to reflect the three
aforementioned aspects of Jewish history.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 FORM
• Based on broken straight and
continuous tortous line.
• Walls are border of the voids
• Interesting thing is one who enters the
building experiences zigzag or jagged
bolt of lighting.
• The museum has a naked reality of its
location history.
• The sharp angles, voids and wounded
body of zigzag form mirror the voilent
dark history of Jews.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

• Visitor enters the Baroque Kollegienhaus and then
descends by stairway through the dramatic Entry
Void, into the underground. 
• Existing building is tied to the new extension,
through the underground, thus preserving the
contradictory autonomy of both the old and new
structures on the surface.
• The descent leads to three underground axial routes,
each of which tells a different story.

• The first leads to a dead end – the Holocaust Tower.  The second leads out of the building and into the
Garden of Exile and Emigration, remembering those who were forced to leave Berlin. 
• The third and longest, traces a path leading to the Stair of Continuity, then up to the exhibition spaces of
the museum, emphasizing the continuum of history.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 FLOOR PLAN

A Void cuts through the

zigzagging plan of the new
building and creates a space that
embodies absence. It is a straight
line whose impenetrability
becomes the central focus around
which exhibitions are organized.
In order to move from one side of
the museum to the other, visitors
must cross one of the 60 bridges
that open onto this void.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 CIRCULATION AND CONCEPTUAL SECTION

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 SECTION

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 EXTERIOR

• While the voids of the interior cannot be seen as

clearly from the exterior, the fragmented form still
creates voids within its own form.
• Additionally, there is an extra void building which
serves as a Holocaust memorial and stands Untreated Alloy of
completely empty, which Libeskind describes as a Titanium and Zinc will
“voided void” oxidize and change
• The theme of disorientation is also less clear at the
colour through exposure
to light and weather
exterior level, but the general lack of hierarchical
structures or a clear path to or from the addition
adds to the theme. The contrast between the old
baroque structure and the newer addition may also
leave visitors confused.

Holocaust Tower Garden of Exile

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 ENTRANCE
• The access of the new building is very deep,
around 10m under the foundation of Baroque
building.
• There are tree accesses inside namely
CONTINUITY, EXILE and DEATH.
• Only one of the three paths leads to the museum
gallery which is the longest one, the continuity.
• The continuity is a metaphor of the continuity of
Jewish presence in Germany.
• The exile corridor leads to a garden which is
somehow thrown of balance and the death road
leads to the Holocaust tower which has no
entrance.

Death Exile Continuity

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 INTERIOR

STORY TELLER IN INTERIOR

The downward movement to the
underground at once tells us this is the
building who wants to communicate with
audience; in fact the building acts as a
story teller. It narrates the history of Jews
which is all connected with notions like
continuity, death and exile and letting the
visitor actually feel it for themselves.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 INTERIOR
Main stairway
• The main metaphor of the interior of the museum is
the void metaphor. Libeskind states that the straight
line void cutting through the museum “is the space
of Berlin, because it refers to that which can never
be exhibited when it comes to Jewish Berlin
history. Humanity reduced to ashes”.
• The space is organized in such an unavoidable way
that “visitors must cross one of the 60 bridges that
open
onto this void”.

• In addition to the void, the fragmentation

of the building is clear in the jagged
windows and beams crisscrossing above
the display spaces.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

INTERIOR FEATURES

Gallery spaces

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 DEEP SORROW

• The 66inch tall concrete wall add a cold

overwhelming atmosphere to the space where
the only light emanates from a small slit at the
top of the space.
• There are 10,000 steel sculpture “Shalechet”
(Fallen Leaves) , designed by Israel Artist Without any artificial lights its dark
Menashe Kadishman’s , on the ground that
symbolised those lost during the Holocaust.
• On the upper levels of the exhibition, the voids
are clearly visible with black exterior walls.
 GARDEN OF EXILE

• First and foremost, the garden, which visitors move through as they exit the museum, “represents an
attempt to completely disorient the visitor. It represents a shipwreck of history”.
• He achieves this disorientation by tilting the floor. This
is especially effective considering the garden appears
to be the only structure in the museum to be
composed on a grid system of right angles.

• Additionally, the vegetation is placed on top of the

structural elements, leaving the earth “remote inside
concrete columns, roots above, hard ground below, and
vegetation interwined above – out of reach”. This will
also serve to disorient a visitor, whose usual conception
of a garden features plants rooted in the ground.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 SUMMARY
He uses metaphor, fragmentation, void and disorientation to communicate the suffering of the Jewish people in
and out of Berlin.

EXTERIOR INTERIOR GARDEN

Star of David 3 paths of Jews Shipwreck of history

METAPHOR Idea of void Dead ends Earth “out of reach”
Window forms from map Unavoidability of void
lines

Star of David, distorted No straight paths Lack of fragmentation (only

FRAGMENTATION Irregular Window forms Chaotic beam placement orthogonal grid in building)
Lack of right angles Void literally cuts through interior Garden pushed to top of columns

Holocaust tower, “voided Not heated or air- conditioned Empty space between columns
VOID void” Lack of displays “Tombstones” are anonymous
Span all floors

Irregular form 3 paths at museum entrance cause Illusion of regularity, structure

DISORIENTATION Lack of hierarchy confusion Tilted floor and sculptural forms
Contrast between old museum andDead ends Plants out of reach, sight
addition

It utilizes symbolism and metaphor, including fragmentation, void, and disorientation, in order to
create a more substantial museum experience.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

 ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS

DESIGN STRENGTH

• Very interactive design which blends people with the actual purpose of the building.
• As one enters into the building, they get to experience themselves living the life of Jewish people rather
than just exhibiting their relics and remains.
• The meaning of each spaces and symbols relates to the life of people and also the building speaks for itself
without any displays kept.
• The architectural meaning of the building is applied at 2D and 3D level with the 3 pathways at the 2D
level and the playing with windows, material, spaces, elevation at the 3D level.

DESIGN WEAKNESS

• The building is not user friendly

• Deficiency in accessibility
• The structure stands as an alien with the respect to the site surrounding.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck
 INTRODUCTION

• The Felix Nussbaum Museum, an extension to

the Cultural History Museum in Osnabrück,
Germany, is dedicated to the work of Felix
Nussbaum, the Jewish artist born in Osnabrück
in 1904 and  a victim of the Holocaust at the
Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 and a
native of this city.
• The Museum displays Nussbaum’s paintings
done prior to his extermination in Auschwitz,
and houses a temporary exhibition space
focusing on the themes of racism and
intolerance.
• Area – 1890 sq.m 

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 LOCATION
• The Museum is located in the city of Osnabruck, a medieval town.
• Population - Over 160,000 inhabitants in the province of Lower Saxony.

VILLA SCHLIKKER
House of Recollections –
Everyday culture of the 20th
Century

FELIX NUSSBAUM –
HOUSE
House of collections

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 CONCEPT
• Each of the elements of the spatial organization of
the geometry and content of the program refer to the
career of Nussbaum paradigmatic expression of the
continued absence, the museum of the unknown and
the significance of the Holocaust unrepresentable
abyss.
• The various components as elements that connect
and form a integral structure, while demonstrating a
permanent horizon of disconnection which
paradoxically serves as a link between a number of
significant places in the city: historical points that act
as a reference for memory space, but intended
meaning as a new dominant form but acts as a
background of hope Folk Art Museum and the
Museum of History.
 FEATURES

The building consists of three main components

• the tall and narrow central Nussbaum corridor,
the long main section, and the bridge, which
acts as a connection to the old museum.

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 FEATURES

The building was completed in the summer of 1998 and was recognized by TIME
• Magazine
In its pathways
with awith
Besttheir sudden breaks,
of Design Award that year. In 2010 The Felix Nussbaum
Museum commissioned
unpredictable intersectionsStudio Daniel
and dead ends,Libeskind
the to create an extension to the
FNH to create additional space for to accommodate the museum’s educational
building structure reflects the life of Felix
events and lectures.  The extension opened in May 2011.
Nussbaum.
• The complex occupies the backyard of the old
Museum of Popular Art, which paradoxically also
hosted the Nazi party in 1933 and also bordering
History Museum.
• Part of the Museum is also on ancient remains of an Aerial View of Museum
eighteenth-century bridge that was part of the
fortifications of the city, the Museum is accessed
laterally through a passage that opens to the outside

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 • The whole represents an
architectural hinge which prevents
the entire site from banalizing,
homogenizing and isolating
historical facts.
• The visitor becomes aware that the
work of Nussbaum, and particularly
its relationship to the cultural,
historical and physical identity of
Osnabruck, requires extraordinary
spiritual differentiation.
• Thus the import of public space,
(both internal and external) and the
relation between the ecosystem and
the architecture is clear

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 • It is part of the mission of this design to house the
Nussbaum collection in a new museum complex, as
well as to transform the entire historical ensemble of
buildings into yet another whole.
• Expressive of permanent absence, 'The Museum of
the Unwitnessed and Unfulfilled' is a Museum
resonant of both the fatality as well as the
significance of the unrepresentable abyss of the
Holocaust.
• The Museum has a particular task: to avoid a
sentimental moment in order to thematise the
existing historical context of Osnabruck through the
disclosure of new cultural values.

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 • The different components of the new complex are seen as
connecting and composing an integral structure, while at the
same time exposing a permanent horizon of disconnection
paradoxically linking significant places to the town; substantial
points of history to spatial memory.
• The new building, therefore, does not seek to dominate as a new
form, but rather retreats to form a background of hope for the
existing Historical Museum and the Villa containing the folk art
collection.
• These buildings are treated as the familiar, yet solitary every-
day figures, while the entire site is reorganized around the nexus
of a new topography which connects the town back onto itself.
• The Nussbaum Museum becomes the link to a lost history. It
acts as a transformer, transmitting the mysterious irreversibility
of time and destiny.

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 • The visitor enters laterally into the Nussbaum pathway, which
is cut open in order to record and define the importance of
entering ‘The Museum Without Exit.'
• The exterior of the Nussbaum pathway is absence itself - an
empty canvass of Nussbaum’s martyred life - referring to the
absoluteness of the crime and the importance of the public
site.
• This empty exterior bequeaths a sense of openness and
incompleteness which is necessary for the interpretation of
Nussbaum’s oeuvre.
• Within the Nussbaum Pathway there are traces of the vitality
of the former Jewish life of Osnabruck.
• Once the visitor is inside this compressed space illuminated
by triangular skylights, he/she is confronted with a displaced
volume containing the vertical entrance volume and its
attendant functions.

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 • The Nussbaum Pathway makes visible the Museum
complex as well as inscribing the invisible
incinerated synagogue.
• The visitor is placed in the precarious equilibrium
between the collected and the uncollectable, or the
recollected and the unrecordable.
• The Nussbaum Pathway leads the visitor through the
compressed geometry of double cone of vision,
which (forward and backward in time) gives one the
visual and kinetic embodiment of the Star of David -
chosen by Nussbaum as his final identifying birth
and death mark.

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 • At the completion of the second floor exhibits, the
visitor becomes aware of the collapsed spatiality of
Nussbaum’s works, the pathos of which lies in the
double recognition of the political futility of escape and
the spiritual resistance of art in face of inhuman
oppression.
• The second floor's unfinished gallery is a time-cut which
signifies the oblique and wrenched segment, a suspended
connection to the existing museum. This suspension
indicates finality of the 1944 paintings testifying to the
indomitable spirit of Nussbaum and the universality of
art.
• The volume of this critical segment is equal and
reciprocal to the geometry of the cut and disconnected
Nussbaum Museum

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 INTERIORS

• In its pathways with their sudden breaks, unpredictable

intersections and dead ends, the building structure reflects the
life of Felix Nussbaum.
• Visitors enter Felix-Nussbaum-Haus at one end of the
Nussbaum Corridor, whose concrete exterior is a blank canvas
in itself.
Gang Interior Hallway
• The constricted interior space evokes a visceral sense of how
Nussbaum painted during his incarcerations — a space without a
horizon which is necessary to understand Nussbaums’s oeuvre. As
the corridor cuts through the building’s compressed geometry,
backward and forward in time, the Nussbaum Corridor becomes a
visual and kinetic embodiment of his life.

Nussbaum Early Works

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 INTERIOR FEATURES

The Old and the New

Michele Nastesi

Second Floor
Exhibition Space
View of Gang Interior

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 STRUCTURE AND MATERIALS

The structure is made

entirely in concrete,
without coatings in the
“path”, the area of
exhibition halls known as
“the house” is externally
covered with an outer
coating of zinc.

Architectural Work – 2 Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabruck

 ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS

DESIGN STRENGTH

• The major components of the building such as the long narrow corridor, the punctuations along the path
makes the user experience the building and the architecture through the spaces.
• The architecture of the building invites the user into the building in itself inspite of not having a defined
exit or entrance.
• The materials and the spatial perception blends with the actual use of the building for which it was built in.

DESIGN WEAKNESS

• The structure contrasts with its surroundings.

• The materials differ from the native material which is available.

Architectural Work – 1 Jewish Museum , Berlin

Thankyou