Skrevet af Jan Bitter (Photographer), Cilly Kugelmann (Preface), Daniel Libeskind (Author)
The Jewish Museum in Berlin tells the story of German-Jewish history
from the fourth century to the present. It consists of two buildings:
the first, a former courthouse, was built in the eighteenth century, and
the second, a massive extension that opened to the public in 2001, was
designed by the world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind (born 1946).
Libeskind's building is comprised of a zinc façade and a set of three
underground allegorical roads. The first leads to the main stairs, and
by implication to the continuation of Berlin's history in the Museum;
the second leads outdoors into the E.T.A. Hoffmann Garden, representing
the exile and emigration of the Jews from Germany; and the third road
leads to a dead end, representing "the Holocaust void." This road cuts
through the ensemble as a whole, and evokes, in the architect's words,
"that which can never be exhibited when it comes to Jewish Berlin
history: humanity reduced to ashes." For Libeskind, a Polish Jew raised
not far from Berlin who lost many relatives in the Holocaust, this
extraordinary building was an intensely personal undertaking with
numerous responsibilities. This volume details this most freighted and
complex of buildings.
