Daniel Libeskind and His Architecture

On the floor, thousands of pieces of heavy metal cut into shapes of the faces of screaming holocaust victims. The visitor is encouraged to walk across the void. Clank, clank, clank echoing up into and all around the void. The noise rings in your head but there is no escape because as you are tempted to look down the screaming faces stare into your psyche. Very simple, very effective. Haunting. (Gold, 2004) 

Libeskind s design entitled Between the Lines was chosen from a world-wide competition of 165 entries (Levenson, 2005), and, of course, the architect was ecstatic when he won It was a thrilling moment when I was selected. The jury recognized that my plan was neither dogmatic nor glib that it served as an individualized mirror, which each visitor could read in a different way. They valued its authenticity and celebrated its originality. I felt honored and elated (Libeskind, 2004, p. 85). 

Because of his own personal background and experience, Daniel Libeskind knew that the architecture must first connect the place to its history and then take visitors from the past to the present and propel them to the future, experiencing a sense of alienation  

You struggle to find the most immediate way to get at the truth. What was needed, as I saw it, was a building that, using the language of architecture, speaking from its stones, could take us all, Jews and non-Jews alike, to the crossroads of history, and show us that when the Jews were exiled from Berlin, at that moment, Berlin was exiled from its past, its present, and—until this tragic relationship is resolved— its future. (Libeskind, 2004, p. 83) 

At this museum, Daniel Libeskind believes history and architecture are joined, for this place thematizes and integrates, for the first time in post-war Germany, the history of the Jews in Germany, the repercussions of the Holocaust and spiritual displacement. It is also just a museum with exhibits on the wall (Mueller-Kroll, 2011). 

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