2/20/13

Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum

            The new addition to the Jewish Museum in Berlin was completed in 2001 by famed architect Daniel Libeskind.  The building itself is a testament to the hardships that the Jewish population faced under the reign of Hitler, and the plan of the building was developed by warping the Star of David.  It sits on land that used to be part of West Berlin before the Berlin Wall was in place.  The only public entrance to the new addition is actually through an underground tunnel coming from the existing building.  This form of entry was intended to evoke emotion out of the user almost immediately, and to set up an expectation for what kind of space was to come.

One of the most interesting things about Daniel Libeskind's addition to the Jewish Museum is the manner in which he used voids in the skin to create shadows within the interior spaces.  At first glance the voids may seem sporadic, but there is a definite meaning to their pattern, and the spaces within greatly benefit from the kind of shadows created by these voids.  Libeskind intended the spaces within to make the visitor feel empty and to create a sense of absence throughout. 

I chose to focus on the concept of these voids and how they create meaningful shadows within the spaces.  The room I represented in my model is a small exhibit space that shows just how effective the shadows are at affecting the feeling of the space.  The voids not only create a zigzag pattern on the walls, they relay that pattern to the floor as well, which in my opinion makes the spaces quite interesting.  


Exterior Shadows


Interior Shadows

Voids 


Sketch showing the voids in the exhibit space

Fabrication plan



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