Interview with Daniel Libeskind
2010 Charles H. Atherton Memorial Lecture Speaker
National Building Museum Online spoke with Daniel Libeskind, 2010 Charles H. Atherton Memorial Lecture speaker, about his experience designing monuments such as the proposed World Trade Center Memory Gardens and museums like the Jewish Museum in Berlin and how he approaches the architectural expression of commemoration.
National Building Museum (NBM) Online: Your work has included museums exploring a wide range of topics, from the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco to the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, England. How does the institution’s mission impact your design?
Daniel Libeskind: Every institution has a unique mission which is the source and beginning of architectural design. My buildings, though powerful in their external presence, are actually designed from the inside out. It is the space and program required by the institution which is the generator of the museum.
NBM Online: How we choose a memorial’s physical manifestation to mark an event, person, or moment in time reflects current design concepts and styles. How have you seen memorial designs change over time?
Libeskind: In our contemporary world the idea of memory is acquiring a new significance. The older passive notion of a memorial is changing because of the participatory demand that every individual be part of the story. My designs, which deal with memory, attempt to reawaken not only the informational context of the event, but to give each individual a unique emotional, cultural, and spiritual content.
NBM Online: What societies choose to memorialize can provide a snapshot of a national mood and can become a larger metaphor for how we view ourselves and our government. Do you see any recurring themes in 21st century memorial designs?
Libeskind: Twenty-first-century memorial designs are certainly more interactive and suggest that in a democratic society every individual be taken seriously. This might suggest that the memorial has become much more a part of everyday life in order to become truly memorable rather than the “official” representation of an event.
NBM Online: What can we learn from memorials outside the United States?
Libeskind: There are a great number of memorials which range from old fashioned to kitsch and all the way to abstract. None of these in my view is adequate to address the reality of memory versus the availability of virtual technology.
NBM Online: What is the public’s role in the design of museums and monuments?
Libeskind: The public’s role in the design of museums and monuments is increasingly seen to be fundamental. Unfortunately, for many years memorials and museums were conceived from the “ivory tower” of the architect. In my own experience, every museum that I have designed has been right in the center of the public participatory process, however controversial it might have been.
NBM Online: How can museums and memorials respond to both a contemporary audience and yet also serve future generations?
Libeskind: First of all they have to be grounded in more than appearance; they have to reach into the deeper sources. In that way the story which the memorial tells is more than the momentary one which gave rise to it, but one which will continue to be of interest to future generations.
NBM Online: Commemoration is an attempt to make history visible. How do the designs of museums and memorials connect the past to the present?
Libeskind: By reaching to a living tradition a memorial can become relevant to the present. If tradition is simply repetition then the memorial’s function will be to support forgetfulness. Only if the tradition is seen as a radical flame will the urgency of a memorial be felt across time.
NBM Online: Are memorials primarily about remembering critical events or are they about something more?
Libeskind: In my view it is less the informational content that a memorial offers than its power to communicate something beyond the visible or thinkable. In this sense a true memorial is a piece of civic art because though it speaks as a language of the material world, its message resonates in the human heart.
