Summary

Architect Daniel Libeskind, known for his dynamic, fractured compositions, is also recognized for introducing a new critical discourse to architecture. In an enormous variety of projects around the worldmajor cultural institutions, convention centers, universities, hotels, commercial centers, and residential workhe has manifested his commitment to expanding the horizons of architecture and urbanism.Counterpoint: Daniel Libeskindis the first comprehensive portrait of the work of Studio Daniel Libeskind, which was established in Berlin in 1989 and moved to New York in 2003 after winning the World Trade Center design competition. Drawn from a series of interviews with celebrated architecture critic Paul Goldberger,Counterpointexemplifies Libeskind's multidisciplinary approach, which reflects a profound interest in philosophy, art, music, literature, theater, and film. Along with Memory Foundations, the master plan for the World Trade Center site, featured projects include the Jewish Museum Berlin, the Royal Ontario Museum, the extension to the Denver Art Museum, the MGM Mirage CityCenter in Las Vegas, a multi-building complex in Busan, South Korea, and projects in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Israel, Mexico, Japan, and China.

Author Biography

Daniel Libeskind is the founder and principal of Studio Daniel Libeskind, founded in Berlin in 1989.

Paul Goldberger is the architecture critic for the New Yorker. He also holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at the New School in New York City. He began his career at the New York Times, and in 1984, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism. He is the author of several books, most recently his chronicle of the process of rebuilding Ground Zero, Up From Zero: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York. The author lives in New York.

Counterpoint
Libeskind in Conversation with
Jewish Museum Berlin
Germany Editoriale Bresciana Tower
Italy Westside Shopping and Leisure Center
Switzerland Haeundae Udong Hyundai I'Park
South Korea Danish Jewish Museum
Denmark The Ascent at Roebling's Bridge Covington
Kentucky Extension to the Denver Art Museum
Colorado Denver Art Museum Residences
Colorado Military History Museum
Germany Grand Canal Square Theatre and Commercial Development
Ireland Roedingsmarkt
Germany Creative Media Centre Hong Kong Riverstone
South Korea Jerusalem Oriya
Israel Reflections Keppel
Singapore MGM Mirage CityCenter Las
Nevada London Metropolitan University Graduate Centre London
England Extension to the Victoria and Albert Museum London
England Imperial War Museum North Manchester
England Fiera Milano Milan
Italy 18.36.54 New Milford
Connecticut Memory Foundations New York
New York New York Tower New York
New York Felix Nussbaum Haus Osnabruck
Germany Memoria e Luce Padua
Italy Tour Signal
La Defense Paris
France Studio Weil Port d'Andratx
Spain Proportion The Wohl Centre Ramat Gan
Israel The Contemporary Jewish Museum San Francisco
California Tangent Seoul
South Korea Gazprom Headquarters St. Petersburg
Russia Royal Ontario Museum Toronto
Canada The L Tower and Sony Centre for the Performing Arts Toronto
Canada Hermitage-Guggenheim Vilnius Museim Vilnius
Lithuania Zlota 44 Warsaw, Poland Credits
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Excerpts

Daniel Libeskind in Conversation with Paul Goldberger
Introduction

Daniel, your practice is now a huge operation with a main office in New York, and other offices in Zurich and Milan. It’s a big enterprise. A dozen years ago or so, there was only a handful of employees and a small amount of work, and the nature of that work was more academic and theoretical. How did the transition evolve from small and academic to large and, in many ways, more commercial?

I like to think it’s a natural evolution of a practice. I started with a single building: the Jewish Museum Berlin. I never built a building before. But even when I was doing what seemed to others to be abstract drawings, I never thought of them as theoretical but as somehow part of an investigation of architecture.

The curve has gone very much more dramatically upward.

I know that many architects would think that the object of their career is to build a museum. I have been fortunate to build a great number. But architecture has to engage in the whole spectrum of needs, such as housing, shopping, education, and office buildings. I certainly love the expanded opportunities. In fact, I try to blur the lines between these different typologies in order to see what is common between them as the art of architecture. I used to do one project at a time, but now I’m equally and intensely involved with many projects. I never enjoyed doing just a sketch of a concept and handing it over to others.

You had anticipated my next question, which is one of management and administration. How is it possible for one man to be completely involved in all of the work in an office as large and as diverse as this now is?

Well, first of all, I have Nina, who is a master at managing the complex operations of the studio. And of course, I am supported by extraordinarily bright and talented young architects from all over the world. In architecture, different projects are not done at the same time. If you have thirty projects, some are at the conceptual stage, some in development, some in working drawings, some in construction. So the demands are not beyond what I can do.

It’s sometimes hard to explain that even in this scope of practice, I’m still designing every window, checking every form, and coordinating every detail—making sure that each building is a hand-crafted work. And that’s what I love to do! If I wasn’t doing that, if I didn’t allow myself to do that, I wouldn’t enjoy it. The diversity of different projects, in fact, finds unexpected connections and leads to new discoveries. The complexity of practice often subverts the prejudice of theory. So the mix has enriched my world view and hasn’t reduced it.

Excerpted from Counterpoint: Daniel Libeskind in Conversation with Paul Goldberger by Paul Goldberger, Daniel Libeskind
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