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April 15, 2005
Innovation, past and present
JFSA luncheon featuring architect Daniel Libeskind attracts 800
people.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
Life. In a word, that was the recurring theme of the Jewish Family
Service Agency's inaugural Innovators Lunch. Featuring world-renowned
architect Daniel Libeskind, the event drew approximately 800 people,
who listened attentively as Libeskind spoke a mile a minute about
what inspired him to create some of his most well-known designs
– the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Contemporary Jewish Museum
(CJM) in San Francisco and the new World Trade Centre in New York.
Emceed by Tony Parsons, the Innovators Lunch took place at the Fairmont
Hotel Vancouver April 4. Dr. Abraham Rogatnik introduced Libeskind
as a "distinguished poet-architect," who understands the
essence of grief but is also able to evoke joy with his designs.
Only two buildings have brought tears to his eyes, said Rogatnik:
the Taj Majal and the Jewish Museum in Berlin, whose zigzag plan
is a metaphor for the torn garment, the ancient Jewish symbol of
mourning.
For his part, Libeskind described architecture as a means of communication:
While it doesn't deal with words, it creates spaces that allow people
to see the world differently. There is such a thing as Jewish architecture,
he said, referring to the Torah, the light of freedom, the light
of the Jewish value of optimism – the idea that from tragedy,
there can be a positive future. Through the use of projected images,
he allowed the audience a glimpse of his creations and from these
and his comments, it is clear that his designs reflect this conviction.
Hope for the future
Born in postwar Poland in 1946, Libeskind is the son of Holocaust
survivors. He based his designs for the Jewish Museum in Berlin
on his experiences, he said, acknowledging that it was very hard
for him to be in the city of Berlin while working on this project,
given his family's history.
On his website (www.daniel-libeskind.com),
Libeskind describes the Jewish Museum as "a museum which explicitly
thematizes and integrates, for the first time in postwar Germany,
the history of the Jews in Germany and the repercussions of the
Holocaust."
The project took some 30 years to complete and it was almost scrapped
by the government at one point, said Libeskind. Quickly taking the
audience through slides of the building, Libeskind described various
aspects of the design, which are summarized on his website:
"There are three underground 'roads' which have three separate
stories," it states. "The first and longest 'road,' leads
to the main stair, to the continuation of Berlin's history, to the
exhibition spaces in the Jewish Museum. The second road leads outdoors
to the E.T.A. Hoffmann Garden and represents the exile and emigration
of Jews from Germany. The third axis leads to the dead end –
the Holocaust Void."
Another of his designs that connects the present with this tragic
past is that of Felix Nussbaum Haus, which is an extension to the
Cultural History Museum in Osnabrück for the work of Felix
Nussbaum, the Jewish artist born in Osnabrück in 1904.
Nussbaum was hounded by the Nazis, said Libeskind. He hid in Brussels
and almost managed to survive the Holocaust, but was turned in by
his neighbors – they could smell the paint, said Libeskind,
who noted that Nussbaum had continued painting right up to the time
he was captured.
As with the Jewish Museum, Felix Nussbaum Haus has a series of twists,
turns and dead-ends in its design: "there is no exit from this
history," said Libeskind.
Giving proof to Rogatnik's comments that Libeskind's buildings could
evoke joy as well as solemnity, Libeskind described the Contemporary
Jewish Museum (CJM) in San Francisco, which is based on the Hebrew
word l'chaim ("to life"), "a quintessial Jewish
value," said Libeskind.
Also uniting past with present, the CJM site is an abandoned power
station from the turn of the century and Libeskind's design revives
the station, as well as providing wholly new spaces for congregating.
As synagogues and other traditional Jewish spaces become less attractive
to Jews – a trend influenced by rising rates of intermarriage,
assimilation and other factors – Libeskind said he wanted to
create a space where Jews (and non-Jews) could meet and be close
to Jewish history, to Jewishness.
"The entire building is a penetration of chai/life into the
talmudic page structure where the margins and commentaries are as
important as what is commented upon," says the architect's
website of the CJM. "No place in the finished museum is unconnected
to the whole, forming an organic structure of space and function.
The entire museum is a matrix calling forth interpretation by the
visitor."
Rebuilding liberty
Libeskind became an American citizen in 1965. He received his professional
architectural degree in 1970 from the Cooper Union for the Advancement
of Science and Art in New York City and a postgraduate degree in
history and theory of architecture at the School of Comparative
Studies at Essex University (England) in 1972. Felix Nussbaum Haus
opened in July 1998, making Libeskind more than 50 years old before
he had his first completed building. The Jewish Museum in Berlin,
for which Libeskind won the competition in 1989, didn't open to
the public until September 2001.
Now a multiple-award-winning architect, Libeskind has taught and
lectured at many universities worldwide, receiving honorary doctorates
from several institutions. In September 2004, Riverhead Books (Penguin
Group) published his latest book, a memoir entitled Breaking
Ground. Also in 2004, Libeskind was appointed the first cultural
ambassador for architecture by the U.S. Department of State, as
part of the country's CultureConnect Program.
Libeskind has an impressive list of buildings to his credit, including
several currently under construction, such as the Maurice Wohl Convention
Centre at the Bar-Ilan University in Tel-Aviv and the extension
to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. In February 2003, Studio
Daniel Libeskind won the World Trade Centre (WTC) design study competition
in New York City.
"There is nothing that pumps blood into an architect more than
seeing drawings come to life," said Libeskind. Life is not
about a picture, he added, and he constantly emphasized the social
implications of his buildings during his talk; the importance of
providing places in which people can congregate, of uniting history
with the future in space, rather than in time, over which we have
no control.
In describing the challenges of creating the plans for the new WTC,
Libeskind stressed these aspects: How does someone create a memorial
space that is hope for the future? How does one fill an empty site,
full of tragedy, and build on it?
Two incidents seemed to have inspired Libeskind's approach to designing
the new WTC: his first view of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan,
from the ship as he arrived in the United States as an immigrant,
and a visit to Ground Zero.
Libeskind likened the experience of descending into the pit at Ground
Zero to that of a diver going ever deeper into the water, the "pressure
mounts, you feel like your head will explode." He said the
absence grows on you as you go further down. But it is in these
depths that Libeskind found hope. The slurry wall – the part
of the former trade centre's foundation that was designed to hold
back the Hudson River – survived the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attack. If it had not, said Libeskind, New York would have been
flooded. He said that only a democracy could have created something
so resilient.
Lauding New York as "the capital of the Free World," Libeskind
recalled seeing the city for the first time. To him, the Statue
of Liberty was not merely a "symbol of liberty,"
but the "real quality of liberty." He said he based
his WTC design – one that Rogatnik said stood "sensitively
and beautifully above the others" submitted for the competition
– on this view: the Statue of Liberty and the skyline of Manhattan.
An innovative agency
After Libeskind's captivating, breathless slide show and talk,
the packed room of potential and current JFSA supporters were introduced
to, or reacquainted with, the agency with short presentations given
by JFSA executive director Joseph Kahn-Tietz, JFSA Friend for Life
Leslie Diamond and Innovators Lunch co-chair Naomi Gropper, respectively.
JFSA is Counting on You, a video produced by Daniel Leipnik
of Vibrance Alive Entertainment, combined images from various JFSA
programs with music containing the lyrics, "life is beautiful,"
and ending with the plea that, "With your help, life can be
beautiful" for so many people.
The brochure given out at the event gave a brief account of the
need for the JFSA in the community and some of what the agency has
accomplished. These achievements include the resettlement of 150
new immigrant families; outreach, support and meal programs for
500 seniors and their families; and vocational guidance and job
development for 250 unemployed individuals, with a 70 per cent successful
placement rate. Lunch attendees were asked to pledge anywhere from
$150 – which would provide emergency funding to a single parent
in crisis, or provide food subsidies for two people for one month
– to $5,000, which would ensure individualized home support
services for five home-bound seniors for three months or help feed
50 families for one month through the Jewish Food Bank.
For more information on the JFSA, call 604-257-5151. The agency's
new offices are located at #305-1985 West Broadway.
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