Daniel Libeskind

Daniel Libeskind, born in 1946, (pronounced LEE bes kihnd) Polish-born architect, architectural theorist, and educator. In 2003 his design won the competition to redevelop the site of the former World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City. The twin towers of the WTC collapsed following a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, which killed nearly 3,000 people (see September 11 Attacks).

Libeskind was born in Łódź, Poland, to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. As a youngster he moved with his family to Israel in 1957 and to the United States in 1959. He became a U.S. citizen in 1965. Although trained as a classical pianist in Israel and New York City, he switched to architecture and received a bachelor of architecture degree from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1970. He continued his studies at the University of Essex in England, receiving a master of arts degree in the history and theory of architecture in 1972.

A man of wide-ranging interests, Libeskind quickly attained prominence in the sphere of architectural theory and debate. His theoretical concerns brought him teaching appointments in several countries, including England, Germany, and the United States. From 1978 to 1985 he headed the department of architecture at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In 1985 he founded an architecture school in Milan, Italy. In the early 2000s Libeskind held teaching positions at the College of Design in Karlsruhe, Germany, and the University of Pennsylvania. In 1989 Libeskind won his first building commission, for a new Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany.

Libeskind believes that buildings should communicate something about their time, location, and history, as demonstrated by his evocative Jewish Museum in Berlin, which was completed in 1999. Its symbolic design reflects the fate of the Jewish people under Nazism. The zigzagging shape of the zinc-clad building recalls a fragmented Star of David, the six-pointed symbol of Judaism that Jews were forced to wear under the Nazis. The main routes in the museum lead three places: to the Stairs of Continuity, which link to exhibits on German Jewish history; to the Garden of Exile, in which concrete columns represent Jews who emigrated; and to the Holocaust Tower, a narrow, dark, unheated, and empty space that is closed off. A walk through the museum is meant to disorient and frighten the visitor with broken spaces, dead-ends, tilted floors, and a void at the heart of the museum meant to remind visitors of the absence of Germany’s once-flourishing Jewish community.

The museum’s unconventional design proved controversial but it turned Libeskind into a much-sought-after architect. The building commissions he received include a branch of the Imperial War Museum (1997-2002) in Manchester, England, which is designed to reflect the fragmentation in conflict; an expansion to the Denver Art Museum in Colorado (2000-2006), for which he drew inspiration from the nearby Rocky Mountains; and an addition to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, which was canceled in 2004 because of a lack of funds.

Libeskind’s winning design for the World Trade Center memorial, like his Jewish Museum, used symbolism for emotional impact. The building’s projected height—1,776 ft (541 m)—reflects the date of American independence, and a spire atop the building resembles the raised arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty. The tower is to house offices and shops; gardens on its uppermost stories will represent the triumph of life. Libeskind’s plan included a memorial situated so that light passing through it each year on September 11 casts no shadow between 8:46 am, the time the first airliner struck, and 10:28 AM, the time the second tower collapsed. In 2005 security concerns led to a redesign of the building, nicknamed Freedom Tower, and the start of construction was delayed until 2006.