Berlin Jewish Museum, Berlin, Germany

Daniel Libeskind

2001

Aerial photograph of angular buildings with trees and grass surrounding.
Liebeskind’s design for a new extension to the Berlin Jewish Museum was the winner of a 1989 competition and was the first of his designs to be built. Its zigzagging shape was intended to evoke the twists and turns of German Jewish history, while it reminds some people of a broken Star of David. The building attracted immediate attention in its unique style, and some thirty-five thousand people visited it before the exhibition was even mounted.

Credits

© Günter Schneider, gschneider.Berlin@t-online.de. Image courtesy of Studio Libeskind,

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 10.

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Creator Bio

Daniel Libeskind

b. 1946

American architect Daniel Libeskind was born in Poland to parents who survived the Holocaust. An architectural theorist and professor for many years, he completed his first building, the Felix Nussbaum Haus in Osnabrück, Germany (1998). It was followed by his first major international success, the Berlin Jewish Museum (2001). In 2003, Studio Libeskind won the competition to redesign the rebuilding of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, destroyed by terrorists in 2001. In 2001, Libeskind became the first architect to win the Hiroshima Art Prize, an award recognizing art that promotes international understanding and peace. He lives in New York City.

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