Daniel Libeskind: The _Heeb_ Interview

by Amy Westervelt

Polish-born, New York-based architect Daniel Libeskind first came to the attention of the architecture world when his Jewish museum in Berlin was unveiled in September 2001. Coincidentally, this was just before the World Trade Center was leveled, which eventually led to the commission, which would garner Libeskind worldwide fame. Although his winning designs for a new World Trade Center have been stalled (essentially by quibbling between the various teams working on the transit hub at the site), Libeskind recently opened his second Jewish museum to the public, this time in San Francisco, winning rave reviews even from his critics.

In actuality, the San Francisco museum was one of Libeskind’s first big commissions (won in 1998), but like the WTC, its building was delayed by bickering. First, the SF museum partnered with another Jewish museum based in nearby Berkeley, then the partnership fell through and Libeskind was asked to scale back a bit. Then, it took awhile to get permits and funding sorted out, and get everyone on board with the design.

I’m not sure what he was planning originally, but the finished product hardly seems like a scaled-back idea. Libeskind made his dramatic, shining deep blue cubes look as though they were growing organically out of a 19th century power station (that was on the national historic register and needed to remain intact). The cubes are supposed to spell out chai although it’s difficult to make out the letters, and they enclose a gallery at one end and a "sound gallery" meant to host concerts or audio exhibits on the other. Outside, a large green plaza extends towards the street, flowing into the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts across the street and its neighbor the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art – the design immediatly makes the museum at once stand out from and be one with the city’s most visited art institutions. And, while The New York Times’ Edward Rothstein skewered the museum for essentially not being Jewish enough because it leaves history out too much (hey, Rothstein, it’s called the Contemporary Jewish Museum, not the Jewish History Museum, or even the Jewish Museum), the museum and its first exhibits (it has no permanent collection)–“Being Jewish: A Bay Area Portrait" ; "In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis" ; and “From The New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig," on loan from the Jewish Museum in New York–have so far achieved the goal it set for itself: to be a dynamic, local insitution that draws visitors from all faiths and walks of life to examine and better understand Jewish culture. Heeb caught up with Libeskind just after the museum opened to get his take.

1. How did you choose chai as the one word that ended up embedded in the design of the museum?

I think it’s probably the most famous word in Jewish tradition and it’s also a number with a lot of meaning:18. It’s about bringing life, and I think emblems of life are part of the story they communicate. In this case, the Hud and Yud are organizing volumes for a new life, a new building outside an existing power station. And then I’ve also used proportions of 18 throughout the building.

In Hebrew letters are not just signs – the letters themselves are part of the story they create and they have a deep history. Jews are the only people who can read a text that’s 2000 years old without any sort of translation. You can’t do that in Latin or Greek because the language has changed, but in Hebrew the meaning of letters is unchanged and very specific.

What are the primary elements of this project that make it unique from other buildings you’ve designed?

Well first of all it’s in San Francisco, which is a unique, beautiful city. And it’s really about celebrating life, literally, both the life of the city and of contemproray Jewish culture. It’s also part of a complex topography -in addition to needing to work around a historical structure, which is beautiful but was meant for batteries, never for people, part of the space is under an existing hotel, and part of it is behind a church. So we had this very constrained, pre-existing space under a hotel, in a power station, and behind church. I think the end result really affirms its own importance and weaves itself into a new story of San Francisco. Really, it’s something quintessentially Jewish – it’s not an icon, but more like a text in other texts, in the margins like Talmudic commentary. You can see where you are in reference to other buildings and functions.

The complexity of the space dictated that we couldn’t build high, couldn’t go much wider and had to protect the existing power station, and yet I believe it is a very expressive building despite those limitations.

What were your thoughts the first time you saw the finished building?

In my mind the building wasn’t finished until people entered it. That moment is the true birth of a building. It was wonderful to see people engage with the building and the plaza, spilling out into a public place. I think it is a complex building and composition with some bold angles and some more subtle angles, exactly right for an expression of contemporary culture, and the space encourages visitors to engage with both each other and with the work on display.

Has this project changed influenced how you think about design in general?

Yes, absolutely. There were many things here that I’ve never done before – cutting through structure of skylights but still continuing the history of those skylights, dealing with really complicated space limitations, all of that. I also learned many things about the complex, beautiful site of San Francisco, and the celebratory situation of existing in the past and in a new time at same time.

Do you consider yourself religious?

Religion is so distorted today – fundamentalist occurrences have distorted it – but I think everyone is a believer, you believe before you even think about it. And Jewish tradition is something I’m very much a part of. But "Jewish" is complex, there’s not just one way to be Jewish. My own family, for example, includes a Hasidic strand, a Zionist strand, reformists, anarchists – they’re all part of the family, and all of those strands are part of the Jewish tradition.

What aspects of Jewish culture did you most want to highlight with your design?

I wanted to emphasize that Jewish culture is deeply rooted in the past but has always had an incredible horizon of freedom into the future. I wanted to create spaces that simultaneously connect you to history and reinvent history. That, to me, is part of Jewish tradition and I wanted to introduce that concept through not only the design but the use of the building, which is why there are spaces programmed for a multi-purpose room, education spaces, and event areas, not just galleries.

And I wanted it to be obvious that there is a Jewish sensibility to creating such a building. All of it – from the small to the big, both in the design and the way the building operates – is symbolically and truly Jewish. That’s why the area for kids and families is at the center, the front desk welcomes you with both a literal and mystical understanding [lights create the word pardes on the lobby wall behind the front desk] and the museum is located in an urban context. I think all of those things make you think about and consider Jewish culture in America. It’s not merely an appliqué of Jewish truth, it’s an extension of many Jewish themes through architecture.

What do you think?