Reading “Between the Lines”

Abstract

During the summer of 1989, just months prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the American architect Daniel Libeskind was awarded first prize in the international design competition for the Berlin Jewish Museum. Initially conceived as a new annex to the Berlin Museum, the building was, in the words of the official guidelines of the competition, “to be devoted above all to a representation of Jewish history as an integral part of the city’s history.”1 Of the 165 entries in the competition, Libeskinds design stood out for its unconventional style, its sheer innovation, and, perhaps most significant, its provocative rendering of the aesthetic interplay between Jewish history and the history of Berlin, between shared memories of the past and new ideas for the future. According to James Young, “Libeskind’s [design] struck the jury as the most brilliant and complex, possibly as unbuildable.”2 In its final statement, the jury emphatically claimed, “This work is an opportunity and a challenge for Berlin!”3