Architects: Studio Libeskind
Area: 15,500 m²
Year: 1999
Photography: Denis Esakov
Facade Designer: Werner & Sohn
Landscape Architects: Müller, Knippschild, Wehberg
Structural Engineering: GSE Tragwerkplaner, Berlin IGW INgenieurgruppe Wiese
Raw Construction: Fischer Bau
Civil Engineering: Cziesielski + Partner
MEP Engineering: Klimasystemtechnik
Cient: Stiftung Juedisches Museum Berlin
City: Berlin
Country: Germany
Jewish Museum, a cultural institution designed by Studio Libeskind in Berlin, Germany, was completed in 1999 and opened in 2001. The 15,500 m² extension symbolizes Jewish history and the Holocaust. The design incorporates a “zig-zag” form inspired by the Star of David, guiding visitors through emotional spaces and historical narratives. This significant architectural project reintegrates Jewish culture into Berlin’s fabric, fostering remembrance and reflection.
The Berlin government organized an anonymous competition in 187 for expanding the original Jewish Museum in Berlin, aiming to restore a Jewish presence after WWII. Daniel Libeskind’s design was selected in 1988 among several renowned architects, notable for its radical, formal design representing Jewish life before, during, and after the Holocaust.
The original Jewish Museum, established in 1933, was closed by the Nazis in 1938 and remained vacant until 1975 when a Jewish cultural group vowed to reopen it. The museum was finally reestablished in 2001 with Libeskind’s addition, completed in 1999, embedding a Jewish presence culturally and socially in Berlin.
For Libeskind, the extension was more than a competition; it was about establishing and securing an identity within Berlin lost during WWII. Libeskind aimed to express feelings of absence, emptiness, and invisibility, representing the disappearance of Jewish culture. The architecture serves as a narrative and emotional tool, offering visitors an experience of the Holocaust’s impact on Jewish culture and Berlin.
The design takes its form from an abstracted Star of David stretched around the site, creating a “zig-zag” building form by connecting lines between historical event locations.
Despite appearing as a separate building, the extension has no formal exterior entrance. Visitors enter through the original Baroque museum via an underground corridor, experiencing a sense of anxiety and disorientation before reaching three routes representing different Jewish experiences: continuity with German history, emigration, and the Holocaust. The “zig-zag” formation guides visitors through various spaces.
The interior, contrary to the exterior’s appearance, is complex. Libeskind’s promenade leads through galleries, empty spaces, and dead ends, with many areas void of windows and material differences.
Reinforced concrete composed the interior, enhancing the empty spaces and dead ends with minimal light, symbolizing hope amid darkness, and reflecting Jewish experiences during WWII.
One of the most emotional spaces is a 6-foot tall void running through the building, with concrete walls creating a cold atmosphere and light from a small slit at the top. The ground covered in 10,000 coarse iron faces symbolizes Holocaust victims. The museum offers an experiential understanding beyond traditional exhibits.
The extension leads to the Garden of Exile, where visitors navigate 49 tall concrete pillars covered with plats, feeling lost and confused but finding a moment of exaltation when looking up at the open sky. Libeskind’s Jewish Museum is an emotional journey through history, showcasing his ability to translate human experience into architectural form.
The Jewish Museum is conceived as an emblem in which the Invisible and the Visible are the structural features which have been gathered in this space of Berlin and laid bare in an architecture where the unnamed remains the name which keeps still.
– Daniel Libeskind
Project Gallery
Project Location
Address: 9-14 Lindenstraße, Berlin 10969, Germany
Location is for general reference and may represent a city or country, not necessarily a precise address.
