Libeskind and the Holocaust Metanarrative; from Discourse to Architecture

Abstract

Abstract The Holocaust today resides between memory and postmemory. Initially, children of survivors and their contemporaries inherited a mediated past and bore full responsibility for disseminating their ancestors’ experiences. However, with the prevalence of the Holocaust metanarrative and its absolutist historicism, it was realised that when memory needs to cross generational boundaries, it needs to cross medial as well. The discourse was not enough; there was a need for broadening the narrative beyond the verbal using a powerful medium with the capacity to affect cognition and provoke emotions. This would be architecture, a storyteller by nature. In the 2000s, there was a noticeable boom in innovative Holocaust museums and memorials. Deconstructivist designs and symbolic forms constituted a new language that would meet the demands of local narratives, influence public opinion, and contribute to social change. This paper examines the potential of this transmediation and addresses critical issues-the importance of the experience, the role of empathy and intersubjectivity, the association of emotions with personal and symbolic experiences-and ethical challenges of the transmedia “migration” of a story. To accomplish this, it draws upon Daniel Libeskind, a Polish-born architect who has narrated different aspects of the Holocaust experience through his works.