Psychoanalysis of Libeskind's Jewish Museum

Jewish Museum, Berlin

Architecture is not just what we see, but how we perceive a given space. Architecture triggers the senses to bring about emotions that a person could associate with a particular space. Daniel Libeskind is a modern architect with a Polish background and a contemporary thinker. He understood architecture's intangible aspects and tangible vocabulary and created a harmonic balance between the physical and the metaphysical. Libeskind used architecture to design a flow of energies in the nothingness of the spaces.

The design of the Jewish Museum in Berlin was proposed as competition, for which Libeskind's entry was selected. He did not romanticize his design like other entrants, he proposed the idea of "Blitz," a zig-zag design, to show an approach towards deconstructivism infused with the phenomenological process. The architect got his inspiration from Levinasian Philosophy and Yaffa Eliach, "Horrific Tales of the Holocaust," that inspired the tower of the Holocaust.

The Star of David was disintegrated and composed to achieve the desired form. The lines marking the Star of David were drawn, joining various historical points in Berlin and extending to the site. The drawings were implemented on a matrix form that contained three-axis intersecting each other underneath the museum. The concept involved the dismantling of the Star of David to suggest the fragility of the Jewish in Germany. The drawing of the disoriented star was transformed further into the zig-zag plan.

 The idea behind the building form was to realistically represent the violence, the schism, and the torture of the Jews in the history of Germany. The architect wanted the visitors to experience the horror of the situation, not just a visual display of his ideas. The unconventional form of the building, moving at different angles in different directions, aided in creating an uneasiness within the users.

Libeskind did not want the structure to blend with the baroque style. He intertwined the building fabric into the past embraced the future. The area of the building adds up to 15,500 square meters.

 

Image Source: https://libeskind.com/work/jewish-museum-berlin/

 

Architectural Elements

The defining architectural elements of the building were the Garden of Exile, with 49 tall concrete pillars covered with plants where the users feel disoriented and lost but looking up to an open sky, a sense of exuberance; the three Axes of the German-Jewish relationship, and the voids. The elements together serve as imagery and a visual method of helping the visitor to understand the vocabulary of architecture, history, and symbolism. It conveys the message of the horrors of the atrocities that happened to the Jewish people. The facade visually confronts the user about the compactness and the unilluminated interiors, as suggested by the slits on the face of the museum.

 

Image Source: https://libeskind.com/work/jewish-museum-berlin/

Voids

The perception of Libeskind's building is not in static dimensions, but dynamism. The entrance to Libeskind's extension is through an underground corridor connected to the Baroque-style museum. The visitors sense claustrophobic anxiety of being lost while moving in the corridor till they reach a junction leading in three different directions. This allows the visitors to perceive the experiences of the victims of the Holocaust in terms of continuity with German history, emigration, and the Holocaust. The museum is not conceived as a memorial. Thus, the displays are strategically located. There is no art of resistance such as skeleton figures behind the bars of a prison, no images of gas chambers, no other elements that belonged to the six million victims of the holocaust, portrayed on the walls of the museum. This gives the visitors time to experience the emotions of devoid and delusion, and relate to the then scenario.

The depiction of the image of brutality is pictured and framed into the voids that Libeskind designed.  The existence of the intangible lies in the voids. Humans occupy the voids yet they fail to understand the meaning of the unseen energy forces that are felt through the experiences they encounter while inhabiting that particular personalized void that is the physical manifestation of the memories and imagination of their own. The metaphysical aspect of architecture lies within the fact that it influences the user experiences of their inhabited voids in the line of time. It connects the past to the present and brings about a psychological and emotional connection.

 

 

Uncanny Confinement

 The interior spaces of the Libeskind's extension are based on the cognitive response of the user and act as a phenomenological experiment. The confined and lowly lit spaces conflict the emotions and thoughts. The dramatic play with the volumes instills at one point a sense of being lost. A person would feel trapped with dead ends not knowing where the way would lead. The elements adding more impact are the unstable axes, walls, slashed windows, disruptive voids which fracture the representational as well as the mundane continuity of the museum along the parallel axis; and the room filled with nothing but emptiness, uncertain of the way out leaving the visitor unaware of his location in the building.

 

The basement is divided into three zones, marking the relationship and history of the Germans and Jews, by the three Axes.  The first, Axis of Continuity, is the longest, leading to the exhibition space on the upper level by the main staircase. The Axis of Exile symbolizes the Jews' emigration and the Axis of the Holocaust signify the extermination. They intersect each other to show the connection between the two incongruous events that ruptured the cultural fabric of the Jews in Germany.

 

The Axis of Exile guides the way to the Garden of Exile. The Axis of the Holocaust dramatically shows changes in its volume, the path becomes narrower and disrupts the access of light, finally leaving the visitor at a dead end, the Holocaust Tower. This depicts the hopelessness. The Holocaust Tower has a slit that allows for light, representing a ray of hope that was triggered in the victims.

 

Emptiness

The interiors were of exposed concrete walls which instigates the dynamics of memories and reinforces the impact of the empty spaces and the dead ends with bleak light access. The voids act as a symbolic gesture to portray the sufferings and experiences of the Jewish during World War II.

 

A 66' tall void in the building adds an unsympathetic and overwhelming response with light entering the space from a small opening at the top. Approx 10,000 coarse iron faces cover the ground, indicating the loss of the Jews during the Holocaust.

Hope

Another important element that Libeskind subtly used is light. Light is an intangible asset that becomes tangible once it lands onto something solid. The light combines the visual elements of the built fabric with the voids and acquires the shape and color of the object it falls onto.

The line of light entering through the designed slits and slashed windows, limited access to maintain the homogeneity of light in the spatial arrangements. Too much ingress of natural lighting would have faded the character and the influence of the voids on the user. Due to the limiting access of light, the place suggests the gloomy and dull environment, engrossed by nothingness and darkness to feel trapped and lost. A faint light enters into the structure, representing a key concept in museum design that symbolizes the restoration of hope. Hope that things will get better.

 

Libeskind considered light as the essence of mathematics, physics, and eternity. Libeskind successfully integrated his idea of infusing memory and architecture. The Jewish Museum in Berlin acknowledges the contributions and chivalry of the victims of the Holocaust. Its visions include to infuse a sense of respect and not let the memories fade into oblivion.

 

 

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