scholarly journals Libeskind’s Museum in Berlin as a toppled tower

2015 ◽  
pp. 325-352
Author(s):  
Artur Kamczycki
Keyword(s):  
The Holocaust ◽  
Daniel Libeskind ◽  
Jewish Museum

In the article the author will attempt to interpret the architectural structure of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, designed in 1989 by Daniel Libeskind. The context of deliberations presented here will rely on a broadly understood idea of tower, an entity identical with the Judaic as well as Christian vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem. However, the key to the metaphor is the assumption that the structure symbolizes a toppled tower, which in its turn is a meaningful analogy to the concepts derived from the issues of the Holocaust.

scholarly journals Arquitectura, dispositivo de experiencia memorial. *** Architecture: a drive of memorial experience .

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilda Azulay Tapiero
Keyword(s):  
Present Communication ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Holocaust Memorial ◽  
Peter Eisenman ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Daniel Libeskind ◽  
Yad Vashem ◽  
Jewish Museum

La arquitectura puede introducirnos en la experiencia de la memoria; memoria como reflexión, y arquitectura como dispositivo para la experiencia memorial a la vez que contenedor de la información. Cada objeto es definido en un proceso en el que considerar diversos actores, sus voluntades, opciones y experiencias. Es el caso de las obras que aborda este trabajo, en las que evidenciar e interrogarnos sobre el gesto arquitectónico, la memoria evocada y su interpretación social. Obras que han alcanzado notoriedad por diferentes motivos: como la Sala del Recuerdo, de Arieh Elhanani, Arieh Sharon y Benjamin Idelson (1961) en Yad Vashem, Jerusalén; por su significado científico e histórico, como el Museo de Historia del Holocausto, también en Yad Vashem, de Moshé Safdie (2005); por su relevancia cultural o arquitectónica, como el Museo Judío (Ampliación del Museo de Berlín con el Departamento del Museo Judío) de Daniel Libeskind en Berlín (1999); e incluso por la controversia que han suscitado, como el Monumento en Memoria de los Judíos Asesinados de Europa, también en Berlín, conocido como el Monumento del Holocausto, de Peter Eisenman (2004).***Architecture can introduce us to the experience of memory; memory as reflection, and architecture as a drive for the experience of remembering as well as a container of information. Each object is de ned in a process in which different actors, their wills, options and experiences, are taken into account. This is the case of the artworks addressed by the present communication, in which we reveal and ask ourselves about the architectural gesture, the evoked memory and its social interpretation. Artworks that have achieved prominence for different reasons, such as the Hall of Remembrance, of Arieh Elhanani, Arieh Sharon and Benjamin Idelson (1961) in Yad Vashem, Jerusalem; for its scientific and historical significance, such as the Holocaust History Museum, also in Yad Vashem, by Moshe Safdie (2005); for its cultural or architectural relevance, such as the Jewish Museum (Extension of the Berlin Museum with the Department of the Jewish Museum) by Daniel Libeskind in Berlin (1999); and even because of the controversy they have raised, such as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, also in Berlin, known as the Holocaust Memorial, by Peter Eisenman (2004).  

The Kabbalistic Alphabet of Libeskind: The Motif of Letter-shaped Windows in the Design of the Jewish Museum in Berlin

Ikonotheka ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 7-40
Author(s):  
Artur Kamczycki
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Visual Metaphor ◽  
Jewish Mysticism ◽  
Entire Structure ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Tikkun Olam ◽  
The World ◽  
Daniel Libeskind ◽  
Jewish Museum

The present article attempts to analyse and interpret the structure of windows in the Jewish Museum in Berlin, designed by Daniel Libeskind and constructed in 1989–1999. Elongated, narrow, irregular window openings arranged at different angles like a tangle of cuts and grooves span the entire structure and resemble Hebrew letters and the kabbalistic notion of the “scattered alphabet”, which functions in Jewish tradition as a visual metaphor. The assumption of such a perspective of interpretation, based on the visual form of the building which was, in its principle, meant to partially refer to the Holocaust, leads to the hypothesis that the chosen motifs of letter-shaped windows (the scattered alphabet) is connected to the kabbalistic postulate of the “repair of the world”, known in Jewish tradition as tikkun olam. The characteristic chaotic arrangement of the window openings is not, as it might be assumed, simply a symbol of the civilisational “fragmentation” resulting from the Holocaust. On the contrary, the design manifestly embodies the nostalgia for the mythical (and messianic) times of harmony, order and regularity, as well as the longing for clear structure and symbiosis. This manifests in the kabbalistic interpretation of the motif of letter-windows understood as a mystical (or even theurgical) element of restoration. Concentration, contemplation, perception and consideration of the forms and shapes of the letters is a notion known from the Kabbalah; in this case architectural references to Jewish mysticism are more than just a strategy for interpretation, but a declarative assumption made by the architect himself. Libeskind’s design in Berlin, therefore, involves the matter of language as the elementary material and instrument of salvation, while the context of the Kabbalah ought to be regarded as a certain symptom or a specific modality shaping new meanings manifested by the work of art that this museum undoubtedly is.

scholarly journals Exhibiting Galicia: Problems of Interpretation and Other Reflections on the Permanent Exhibition at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 105-126
Author(s):  
Jonathan Webber
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Small Town ◽  
Critical Comment ◽  
Jewish Heritage ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
Opening Section ◽  
Jewish Museum

The purpose of this article is to offer a critical comment on the permanent exhibition of the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków. The exhibition is innovative in museological terms. It is not about the Jewish history of Galicia, nor is it arranged using conventional chronology, nor is it comprehensive. Rather it is divided into five sections, based on a five-part set of ideas, simple ideas intended to help visitors make sense of the complex realities surrounding the present-day situation of the Jewish heritage seventy-five years after the Holocaust. Let me now briefly outline how these five ideas are represented museologically, the five sections in which the exhibition is organized. The opening section directly presents the popular Jewish stereotype that post-Holocaust Poland is nothing but a vast Jewish graveyard. So this section of the exhibition consists entirely of the raw, shocking sight of desolation – for example, photos of ruined synagogues or ruined Jewish cemeteries. The 23 photos on show in this section include the appalling condition of the synagogue in Stary Dzików (a small town near the Ukrainian border) as it looked in the 1990s and of the devastated Jewish cemetery in Czarny Dunajec (a small town near the Slovak border) at that time. Emphasizing what has been lost by showing the Jewish past of Poland in ruins, and how in that sense the effects of the Holocaust on the built Jewish heritage are still visible, even today, is certainly a powerful and provocative way to begin an exhibition in a Jewish museum.

scholarly journals Monuments of Ruination in Postwar Berlin and Warsaw: The Architectural Projects of Bohdan Lachert and Daniel Libeskind

2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 550-573
Author(s):  
Michael Meng
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Life ◽  
Housing Project ◽  
Conventional Form ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Daniel Libeskind

AbstractThis essay provides an interpretation of parallel attempts to represent ruination in the cities of Warsaw and Berlin after the Holocaust—the architectural projects of Bohdan Lachert and Daniel Libeskind. Lachert strove to represent the ruination of Jewish life in Warsaw through a modernist housing project, whereas Libeskind sought to represent Jewish ruination in a museum. While these two projects might seem different, they come together around a shared aspiration: to represent absence and ruination. Both projects endeavored to create a new kind of memorial that moved away from the conventional form. Rather than turning away from ruination and suffering as the conventional monument has done, Libeskind and Lachert sought to develop a new, non-salvific kind of monument that would reflect on death, suffering, and emptiness. This essay emphasizes the novelty of their attempts to create a different relationship to the absence that is the past, while it also explores some of the central challenges—both historical and theoretical—that both architects faced in implementing their artistic visions.

scholarly journals Conceptual diagrams in creative architectural practice: the case of Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fehmi Dogan ◽  
Nancy J. Nersessian
Keyword(s):  
Architectural Design ◽  
Double Burden ◽  
Architectural Practice ◽  
Unusual Position ◽  
Daniel Libeskind ◽  
Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum in Berlin is the first major building of Daniel Libeskind [1,2]. The project for the museum has instigated a wealth of discussions in architectural circles and achieved a rare status of attracting the attention of scholars from other disciplines. Kurt W. Forster put the design for the Jewish Museum on a par with Piranesi's Carceri d'Invenzione, an unusual position for any building since very rarely does an architectural design ‘[…] bear this double burden of representing both actual buildings and mental structures, and which therefore have to submit to being measured by both standards: the durability of their ideas and the imaginative faculty of their designer.’

scholarly journals The spectre of the thing: The construction of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Holocaust memorial

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-40
Author(s):  
Martin Kerby ◽  
◽  
Malcom Bywaters ◽  
Margaret Baguley ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
Public Meetings ◽  
Holocaust Memorial ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Gays And Lesbians ◽  
Western Side ◽  
Planning And Construction ◽  
Sydney Australia ◽  
Jewish Museum

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Holocaust Memorial is situated on the western side of Green Park in Darlinghurst, in Sydney, Australia. Darlinghurst is considered the heart of Sydney's gay and lesbian population, having been the site of demonstrations, public meetings, Gay Fair Days, and the starting point for the AIDS Memorial Candlelight Rally. It is also very close to both the Sydney Jewish Museum and the Jewish War Memorial. The planning and construction of the Memorial between 1991 and 2001 was a process framed by two competing imperatives. Balancing the commemoration of a subset of victims of the Holocaust with a positioning of the event as a universal symbol of the continuing persecution of gays and lesbians was a challenge that came to define the ten year struggle to have the memorial built.

scholarly journals Useful Sites of Memory: Jewish Museums in Belgrade and Sarajevo

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 237-249
Author(s):  
Yulia Oreshina
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Entire Region ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way ◽  
Jewish Museum

Understanding museum as a tool of mediation, premediation and remediation of cultural memory, I focus in this article on two case studies — the Jewish Museum in Sarajevo and Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade. While the Jewish Museum in Sarajevo positiones the city of Sarajevo as the first center of Jewish life in Balkans, the Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade claims to be the only museum in ex-Yugoslavia presenting the history of Jews in the entire region. Both museums, therefore, claim to be the most important museums on this topic in the region, and certainly in a way compete to each other. What are the real stories hidden under these narratives, and which political and historical circumstances influence the fact that these two museums represent such contrasting stories? With the help of content analysis of the museum exhibitions, I detalize the narratives presented in the both case studies. In the focus of my interest is contextualization of Jewish history in the region and juxtaposition of the ways it is presented in the chosen museums. Obviously, Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade still represents the unifying Yugoslavian narrative, serving as an umbrella museum for the entire region. In case of Sarajevo, close connection between ongoing process of victimization of the recent past of the city and mythologization of preYugoslavian life in Sarajevo, together with idealization of Bosnian-Jewish relations can be observed. Additionally, I look into the way of representation of the topic of the Holocaust. In the both case studies, the way of narration of the Holocaust is closely linked to the dominant historical narrative of the country, and the museum exposition serves as yet another justification of it. In both cases, the narrative of the Holocaust is shadowed by the previously existing historical tradition — in Yugoslavian times, the Holocaust was predominantly connected to the Ustasha regime and was symbolized by Jasenovac. Nevertheless, within current political realities, the Holocaust memory and the memory of Jewish life in Serbia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina undergoes certain changes and becomes instrumentalized in many contexts.

scholarly journals Cruising Eisenman’s Holocaust Memorial

Anos 90 ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (42) ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Rozas Krause
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Art Exhibition ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Holocaust Memorial ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Sexuality And Gender ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The One ◽  
Holocaust Narratives ◽  
Jewish Museum

Profile pictures from gay dating sites of young men posing with the stelae of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe in Berlin have been subject to an art exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York and a tribute online blog. This paper unveils the meaning of these pictures on this particular site, in an effort to understand why these men chose to portray themselves at the Holocaust Memorial in order to cruise the digital sphere of gay dating websites. In three consecutive sections, the paper asserts that, on the one hand, the conversion of the Holocaust Memorial into a cruising scenario is facilitated by a design that —putting forward autonomy and abstraction— allows and even invites its constant resignification in terms of everyday practices. And, on the other hand, it posits that the images exhibited at the Jewish Museum can be interpreted as a performative memorial which reinscribes sexuality and gender into Holocaust narratives. 

scholarly journals Libeskind and the Holocaust Metanarrative; from Discourse to Architecture

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 291-303
Author(s):  
Xanthi Tsiftsi
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
Full Responsibility ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Local Narratives ◽  
Daniel Libeskind

Abstract The Holocaust today resides between memory and postmemory. Initially, children of survivors and their contemporaries inherited a mediated past and bore full responsibility for disseminating their ancestors’ experiences. However, with the prevalence of the Holocaust metanarrative and its absolutist historicism, it was realised that when memory needs to cross generational boundaries, it needs to cross medial as well. The discourse was not enough; there was a need for broadening the narrative beyond the verbal using a powerful medium with the capacity to affect cognition and provoke emotions. This would be architecture, a storyteller by nature. In the 2000s, there was a noticeable boom in innovative Holocaust museums and memorials. Deconstructivist designs and symbolic forms constituted a new language that would meet the demands of local narratives, influence public opinion, and contribute to social change. This paper examines the potential of this transmediation and addresses critical issues-the importance of the experience, the role of empathy and intersubjectivity, the association of emotions with personal and symbolic experiences-and ethical challenges of the transmedia “migration” of a story. To accomplish this, it draws upon Daniel Libeskind, a Polish-born architect who has narrated different aspects of the Holocaust experience through his works.

scholarly journals “THE POETRY OF BREAKING”: THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE MUSEUM IN THE PROJECTS OF DANIEL LIBESKIND

2021 ◽  
pp. 52-57
Author(s):  
О.O. DERIABINA
Keyword(s):  
Great Influence ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Parallel Lines ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Daniel Libeskind ◽  
Trend Direction

Raising of problem. The study of the creativity of masters of architecture of the late XX − early XXI centuries, as a rule, occurs in line with the consideration of the characteristic features inherent in one or another author. Most of the scientific works state that the structure belongs to a certain trend, direction, style. But the choice of artistic means by the architect remains unclear, which is reflected in the discrepancy between the figurative solution and the purpose of the building in the perception of the consumer. Therefore, it is relevant to consider the creativity of architects, in whose works artistic and semantic characteristics acquire an organic fusion. Among such masters is Daniel Libeskind, who made the complex language of deconstructivism the only one possible for his architectural work. The article is devoted to the consideration of the origins of the artistic language of the outstanding architect on the example of his museum projects, which constitute a significant part of his work. Purpose is to analyze the characteristic features of the artistic language of Daniel Libeskind on the example of museum projects. The research was carried out on the material of the master's works dedicated to the national tragedy of the Jewish people − the war and the Holocaust. Conclusion. The circumstances of Daniel Libeskind’s personal life, as well as his passion for philosophy and music, had a great influence on his work. The Libeskind’s artistic language is very individual: within the framework of one project, he combines dissonance and harmony, the tragedy of war and the desire for a peaceful life. The compositional means the architect uses to embody these categories are: asymmetry, contradictory combinations of volumes and spaces, virtuoso interweaving of lines and planes. The artistic language of all Libeskind’s museum buildings has similarities that can be traced in each project, namely broken, non-parallel lines, pointed forms, invasions, contrast and script.

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