Death as the Murder and the Void and How to Remember It: Libeskind’s Museum and Eisenman’s Memorial in Berlin

Abstract

Libeskind’s Jewish Museum Berlin (1988-1999) and Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (1997-2004) strive to “tell a story” by means of architecture – a story that cannot be told, for it is “unique and inexplicable”, that “defies representation”. Therefore, they created two places where the emotional content of this story can be re-experienced directly and the memory of it perpetuated forever. The story of the Holocaust calls for a special kind of monument, a “counter-monument”, which, however, also carries a specific political significance.