The Jewish Museum, Berlin
Project
The extension to the existing Jewish Museum in Berlin was designed by Daniel Libeskind, who won the competition put forward by the Berlin government in 1987. The existing Jewish museum was established in 1933 but was closed during the Nazi regime in 1938. It remained vacant for years before opening again in 1975 by a Jewish cultural group[2]. Daniel Libeskind, the architect, was an American born in Poland in 1946 to Jewish parents[3]. The Jewish museum was not his first project, although most of his work previous was for exhibitions. He was very experimental in his earlier work and so it is no surprise that the Jewish Museum shocked many. This lightning bolt of a building, made of grey zinc cladding with windows that looked less purposeful and more like tears in the façade, defied all rules of architecture. There were no right angles, no obvious windows, not even a formal entrance, instead the visitors must enter the basement via a staircase in the original museum next door. The inside of this building was even more shocking, a deliberately disorienting journey staged by Libeskind to try and evoke something of the great trauma which the Jewish community had suffered in the Holocaust[1].
This building is an unorthodox example of good lighting design – it may be less clear in exhibiting all aspects of light but it does so, and in a way that seems quite the opposite to the goals of many architects working with light. The way in which Libeskind employs light in his design is to disorient, to make those inside these spaces feel a great discomfort. Only one with a clear understanding and vast knowledge of light would be able to manipulate light in this manner – only when you understand what light conditions are comfortable can you design spaces to be deliberately uncomfortable. This design uses all four powers of light but all through the lens of the emotional power of light, as Libeskind’s goal was to evoke these negative emotions from the visitors of the gallery.
Function
Libeskind uses light in a radical way, showcasing his knowledge of the eye and how we see. This is most clearly shown in the garden, where he deliberately creates a change in light levels, which potentially blinds people on re-entering the dark interior of the building after experiencing direct sunlight in the garden.[1] It is known that the human eye needs more than 30 minutes to adapt when changing from darkness to light (if changing from a dark to a light space the eye only needs 30 seconds to react in comparison). Libeskind also puts to use perceptual psychology in his designs, which states that perception is not only a process of reproducing images but rather involves complex interpretation of our surroundings. Light is a big part of how we perceive our environment – it determines the priority of the way things are seen. This can be seen in the galleries of the museum, where the slivers of windows throughout the space casts bright patches of light which capture visitor’s eyes – disorienting them as they move through this maze-like space.
Aesthetics
The light used in this project is a mix of artificial and natural light, many spaces containing no windows at all. The little light in these spaces, both artificial and daylight is low and diffuse, apart from the galleries, which are lit more brightly than other spaces such as the Void. Both types of lighting work well to accentuate the dreary, cold, dull concrete of the walls and helps add to that cold overwhelming atmosphere that fills the entire space.[2]
Emotional
Libeskind uses traditional light symbolism in order to create this distorted space, in doing so he questions the meaning of light in architecture. In traditional light symbolism, light is divided into two aspects – light and shadow, both with many meanings and interpretations, the simplest of which would be good and evil. In uniting these two, we can make spaces which appeal to us in their descriptions of human and the divine, the historic and the eternal – we can present a perfect world, present a sense of goodness and morality in the world through our architecture.[1] Libeskind wanted to use light I a different way, he viewed traditional light symbolism as somewhat dishonest in a world full of suffering, disorder and chaos, he felt as though this symbolism of a perfect world drew us further from reality rather than urging us to question and make sense of the warped nature of reality. Thus, his goal for this project was to make the visitors reflect on socio-cultural systems in the world at large, through experiencing these spaces[3].
Examples of this are found throughout the museum, starting at the entrance where descending into the basement prompts the visitor to feel the anxiety of hiding, and then entering through the crossroads at the entrance and into the other parts of the gallery experience that sense of confusion and maybe even a little fear not knowing where exactly they are going. In the Void, deemed by the architect himself to be one of the most important aspects of the design, visitors are thrust into a series of tall empty spaces with only a small amount of light coming from a small opening in the roof[1]. In these spaces, where it is hard to even see your feet, the emptiness and darkness of these spaces remind visitors of the absence of six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust[1].
Somatic
This building does little to nurture our physical and mental wellbeing, in fact it does exactly the opposite. The radical lighting design showcased in this museum is designed to and does make us uncomfortable – any sliver of light we are exposed to is warped to give us the exact opposite effect light normally gives. Artificial light is used most of the time, and low light levels dominate the spaces, making us long for and crave the daylight we need and our body needs. In this way, this building appeals to the most primal, core parts of our being.
(all photos used from [2])
References
1. Steane MA. The Architecture of Light : Recent Approaches to Designing with Natural Light. London: Taylor & Francis Group; 2011.
2. AD Classics: Jewish Museum, Berlin / Studio Libeskind | ArchDaily [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 20]. Available from: https://www.archdaily.com/91273/ad-classics-jewish-museum-berlin-daniel-libeskind
3. Reeh H. Encountering empty architecture: Libeskind’s Jewish Museum Berlin. Vol. 15, Journal of Art Historiography Number. 2016.
