Libeskind and the Jewish Museum in Berlin

Describing architecture and the experience of it as a Doppler effect is more accurate than pretending it is simply dialectic. No matter how we draw plans and sections, we experience architecture on a human scale. To pretend that architecture can sit apart from the human interacting it, is designing an object rather than a space to be inhabited.

We began talking about the design of Libeskind’s Jewish Museum during class. Conceptually this is a very interesting building – attempting to make direct connections to the context through a series of nodes. The experience within the building is very interesting because the clashing angles and large void spaces give a sense of eeriness. However, I found the fundamental push to communicate the terror of what happened to the Jews in Berlin quite lacking. Is this a bad space? Not necessarily. The architecture is intriguing and powerful. This museum is a great example of the push and pull between the Doppler effect and a dialectic experience. I believe the museum is designed with more of a dialectic mentally, but it is still experienced more like the Doppler effect.