Descriptive Summary
Biographical/Historical Note
Administrative Information
Separated Material
Scope and Content of Collection
Indexing Terms
Bibliography
Descriptive Summary
Title: Daniel Libeskind papers
Date (inclusive): 1968-1992
Number: 920061
Creator/Collector:
Libeskind,
Daniel
Physical Description:
60 Linear Feet
(52 boxes, 168 rolls, 27 oversize folders, 12 models, 1
folio)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: The Libeskind archive contains 15
design projects (1970-1991), materials related to Libeskind's teaching at the Cranbrook
Academy of Art (1980-1984), manuscripts and publications (1970-1990) and photographs, slides
and transparencies (ca. 1968-1990). The Jewish Museum in Berlin (also called Between the
Lines in this archive) is the most extensively documented of his designs.
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Language: Collection material is in English
and German.
Biographical/Historical Note
The architect Daniel Libeskind was born in Lodz, Poland in 1946 and emigrated with his
family to Israel. He studied music at the Lodz Conservatory. In 1960, after winning the
America - Israel Cultural Foundation Fellowship, he moved to New York to continue his
studies in music. While in the United States, however, he changed direction and enrolled in
architecture at Cooper Union, studying with John Hejduk and Peter Eisenman. In 1970 he was
graduated summa cum laude with a B. Arch. degree. He subsequently earned his Master's degree
in History and Theory of Architecture at the School of Comparative Studies at Essex
University, England, in 1972 with his thesis
Imagination and Space.
In the late 1980s Libeskind founded the studio Architecture Intermundium, Milan, Italy
(Founder and Director, 1986-1989), in order to challenge the trend toward what he viewed as
the corruption and commodification of architecture. Libeskind's projects reflect his
readings in philosophy, his study of music, and, in his best known project, his connection
to the Jewish diaspora and the Holocaust.
Libeskind's design for the Jewish Museum Extension to the Berlin Museum (Jüdisches Museum
im Berlin Museum), triggered international controversy and earned Libeskind considerable
acclaim from architects and architectural critics worldwide. After winning the competition
in 1989, it took ten years to build the Jewish Museum Extension (which he titled
Between the Lines). The project successfully endured opposition from Mayor
Eberhard Diepgen and many of the citizens of Berlin, and weathered the fall of the Berlin
Wall. Libeskind and his wife, Nina, launched a letter writing campaign that lobbied members
of the Berlin Senate and the Mayor himself. The cornerstone for the Jewish Museum Extension
finally was laid on 9 November 1992 and the building completed in January 1999.
Since the Jewish Museum Extension competition, Libeskind has won numerous international
architectural awards and competitions as well as commissions for other museums. In 1988 the
Museum of Modern Art, New York, included Libeskind (along with architects Peter Eisenman,
Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Schumi, and the team Coop Himmelblau) in the
exhibition "Deconstructivist Architecture" curated by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley.
Libeskind has taught and lectured in Australia, Europe, Japan, South America, and United
States. The bulk of the teaching materials in this collection is related to his tenure as
Head of the Department of Architecture at Cranbrook Academy of Art. His academic
appointments also include Visiting Professor at Harvard University, the Louis Sullivan
Professorship at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Bannister Fletcher Professorship
at the University of London, the Davenport Chair at Yale University, and the Lee Chair at
University of California, Los Angeles.
Administrative Information
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Daniel Libeskind papers, 1968-1992, Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Accession
no. 920061.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa920061
Acquisition Information
Acquired from Daniel Libeskind in June 1992.
Separated Material
The following books were transferred to the repository's research library, general
collection.
Chamberworks: Architectural Meditations on Themes from
Heraclitus.
May 1999.
Between Zero and Infinity: Selected Projects in
Architecture
,
Sep 1999.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Daniel Libeskind papers, 1968-1992 (ca. 60 lin. ft. in 52 boxes, 168 rolls, 27 oversize
folders, 12 models, 1 folio) are comprised primarily of materials - drawings, notebooks,
sketches, models, correspondence, press clippings, videotapes, transparencies - documenting
the Jewish Museum Extension to the Berlin Museum, 1988-1992, which in this archive is titled
Between the Lines.
The collection also contains 14 other design projects (1970-1991), materials related to his
teaching at the Cranbrook Academy of Art (1980-1984), some manuscripts and publications
(1970-1990), and photographs, slides and transparencies (ca. 1968-1990).
The significance of this collection lies in the inclusion of representative pieces from
Libeskind's earlier projects as well as the nearly exhaustive documentation of
Between the Lines, the Jewish Museum Extension, up to 1992. Not only are
original architectural drawings, sketches, notebooks, and models included, but the
collection holds the many revisions and alterations made from those original drawings; what
appear to be merely photocopies of original drawings often have subtle modifications
indicated on them. One can see the manner in which Libeskind draws from his earlier works
for inspiration. The design materials are further informed by the flurry of correspondence
which documents the delays and crises that threatened to halt the construction of the museum
in the early 1990s.
While the
City Edge and
Marking the City Boundaries projects
are fairly well documented, many of his earlier projects are represented with only a few
items. The archive contains several boxes and binders of images of Libeskind's Cranbrook
students' designs.
Other items in the archive include copies of his Cooper Union Thesis,
Collage, 1970; the set of Venice Biennale competition books, 1985;
Gedenkbuch Berlin 6 000 000, a Berlin Museum commemorative book; a musical score (roll
18**); and a videotape (box 52, f.2) featuring architectural critic Charles Jencks, mayor of
Berlin Eberhard Diepgen, and Berlin Museum Director Rolf Bothe.
This collection does not include work after
Between the Lines, 1992.
The papers are arranged chronologically by project date. Items within each project have
been further organized by date.
Arrangement note
The papers are organized in 6 series:
Series I. Design projects: drawings, notebooks and models, 1979-1992;
Series II. Lectures,
manuscripts, publications and student work, 1970-1990;
Series III. Correspondence, 1983-1992;
Series IV. Press clippings, 1990-1992;
Series V. Transparencies,
ca. 1968-1990;
Series VI.
Videotapes, 1980-1991
Indexing Terms
Subjects - Names
Libeskind, Daniel
Subjects - Corporate Bodies
Jüdisches Museum im Berlin Museum
Subjects - Topics
Museum architecture -- Germany -- Berlin
Jewish museums -- Germany -- Berlin
Architecture, Postmodern
Architecture, Modern -- 20th century
Subjects - Places
Berlin (Germany) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
Genres and Forms of Material
Blueprints (reprographic copies)
Architectural models
Architectural drawings (visual works)
Transparencies
Videotapes
Contributors
Libeskind,
Daniel
Bibliography
The following materials were consulted while cataloging this archive:Betsky, Aaron. "Libeskind Builds - Once the dean of paper architecture, Daniel Libeskind
has completed his first buildings. Do they live up to the power of his provocative
thinking?"
Architecture : the AIA journal, September 1998, p.
103+.
Binet, Hélène.
A Passage Through Silence and
Light: Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum Extension to the Berlin Museum
.
Introduction by Raoul Bunschoten. London: Black Dog Publishing Ltd., 1997.
Derrida, Jacques. "Response to Daniel Libeskind."
Research in
Phenomenology
, vol. 22, 1992.
Levene, Richard and
Márquez Cabanes, Fernando. "Daniel Libeskind, 1987-1996."
El Croquis, vol
80, 1996.
Libeskind, Daniel. "Berlin Museum with the Jewish
Museum."
Kenchiku bunka volume 53, no. 621, July 1998, p.
58-83.
Libeskind, Daniel.
Between Zero and Infinity:
Selected Projects in Architecture
. New York: Rizzoli Intl. Pub.,
1981.
Libeskind, Daniel.
Chamberworks: Architectural
Meditations on Themes from Heraclitus
. London: Architectural Association,
1983.
Libeskind, Daniel.
City Without Plan:
Architecture Descends into the Hexagonal Garden
. Lisboa: Editorial Blau, 1992.
Libeskind, Daniel.
Countersign. New York:
Rizzoli International Pub., 1992.
Libeskind, Daniel.
End Space: An Exhibition at the Architectural Association. London:
Architectural Association, 1980.
Libeskind, Daniel.
Erweiterung des Berlin Museums mit Abteilung Jüdisches Museum; Extension to the
Berlin Museum with Jewish Museum Department
. Berlin: Ernst & Sohn,
1992.
Libeskind, Daniel.
Line of Fire.
Genève: Centre d'art contemporain, 1988.
Libeskind,
Daniel.
Micromegas. Helsinki: Museum of Finnish Architecture, 1980.
Libeskind, Daniel.
Radix-Matrix: Architekturen und
Schriften.
Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1997.
Libeskind,
Daniel.
Symbol and Interpretation.