An Architectural Monument
By Rachel Gamble
By analyzing Daniel Libeskind’s
Jewish Museum in Berlin, we can see how architecture’s role within society has
expanded and transformed as a result of the two World Wars. With war comes profound
political changes, as well as drastic changes in people’s lifestyles. Even the
ways in which people use their spaces evolve during periods of war. In the
unstable years following the World Wars, we see much architectural experimentation in Europe as people looked restlessly for change. Europeans affected by the war had to reconstruct their lives entirely and adapt, and thus their architecture adapted as
well. The result was a new and different role for architecture - the role of
architecture as a monument. Architecture evolved and became more than simply
“buildings” as people began to use
works of architecture as monuments to convey social information or to
memorialize wartime events. In some instances buildings were used as political
monuments designed to send political messages or to reinforce governmental power.
Buildings like Libeskind’s museum, however, were a different kind of monument: poignant memorials to commemorate people affected by the war.
In Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish
Museum, we can observe clearly how the line between architecture and monument
began to blur in the tumultuous years following the World Wars. Libeskind’s
structure is not simply a neutral backdrop for the historic artifacts inside,
but can also stand alone as a symbolic monument, even when empty. This expansion of architecture beyond
its basic functions brings to mind a quote from Le Corbusier’s Towards a New Architecture: “The
business of Architecture is to show emotional relationships with raw materials.
Architecture goes beyond utilitarian needs... passion can create drama out of
inert stone.” Libeskind successfully
creates a space that does not stop at its functional requirements. His building is full of emotion – a moving exhibition in itself, regardless of its contents. Here, in the wake of war, architecture
becomes more than simply a building.
Libeskind extends the boundaries of architecture to "monument" through his heavy use of symbolism. Libeskind’s symbolic organization
of the spaces inside the museum creates a monument that paints a telling picture of life for Jews in Germany. Throughout the museum are empty
void spaces. The spaces around the voids are full of life, yet the void
spaces themselves are unfriendly and almost inaccessible to visitors of the museum. This perhaps
mirrors the absence of the Jewish population in Germany history caused by the
Holocaust. The architecture, with its missing pieces, becomes an evocative physical manifestation of the empty
spaces in Jewish history. Libeskind’s building is also designed in the shape of
a deformed Star of David. The result seems to be zigzagging navigation through
the building that is difficult and disorienting, perhaps suggesting some of the
discord in the lives on the Jewish people during the Holocaust.
Libeskind’s symbolism extends to the exterior as well. Jagged, irregular windows slice across the building's façade with no discernible
pattern - perhaps symbolizing scars in Jewish history. The building, through
its disconcerting symbolic elements, is not simply an empty vessel designed to
house monuments to German Jews, but a monument in its own right.
In Libeskind’s Jewish Museum and
other buildings built in the wake of the World Wars, architecture becomes more
than a setting for human experiences but begins to have a life of its own.
Architecture like that of Daniel Libeskind in Berlin goes a step further
than structure and function, to become commemorative and symbolic. The war produced many fissures in European history, and architecture built since then seems to have gone deeper, socially and psychologically, than ever before. Juhani
Pallasmaa in his book, The Eyes of the
Skin, writes about this potential of architecture to become something more: “The ultimate meaning of any building is beyond architecture;
it directs our consciousness back to the world and towards our own sense of
self and being.” Post-war buildings are an example of how architecture can become more than simply buildings and serve as poignant monuments to times past. Through them we can see how architecture is continually acquiring a greater and more complex social role, especially in times of war.
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| Void spaces |
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| Irregular circulation |
Sources
Le Corbusier. “Towards a New Architecture.” New York: Dover
Publications, 1927.
Pallasmaa, Juhani. “Eyes of the Skin.” J
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