Libeskind's goodbye to Berlin: Daniel Libeskind is moving to New York: a retrospective of his work is on in Berlin.For 13 years Daniel Libeskind lived in Berlin where he built the Jewish Museum which founded his reputation as a hero of international architecture. Since the beginning of this year he has moved to New York to realize what will most certainly be his most significant commission, the masterplanning of Ground Zero and the new World Trade Center. It is therefore appropriate to celebrate Libeskind's departure from the German capital with a retrospective of his work in the space of his own Berlin masterpiece. Matthias Matthias, 1557–1619, Holy Roman emperor (1612–19), king of Bohemia (1611–17) and of Hungary (1608–18), son of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II. He was appointed governor of Austria (1593) by his brother, Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. He formed a close association there with the bishop of Vienna, Melchior Klesl, who later became his chief adviser. Reese, once Libeskind's project director for the Jewish Museum, has designed a generous and elegant 600 sq m exhibition around 15 of the best known works. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Beginning with Libeskind's graphic work Micromegas (1979) and Chamberworks (1983), half of the projects are dedicated to his early concepts and projects in Germany. Libeskind's first ever completed building, the Felix-Nuss-baum-Museum in Osnabruck (AR April 1999), and his revolutionary designs for two of Berlin's most prominent squares. Potsdamer and Alexander Platz, are included. British projects (the London V&A, AR July 1996, and Manchester's Imperial War Museum, AR January 2003), are also given ample space, all as a kind of prelude to the gigantic American commission in Manhattan. In fact, Counterpoint counterpoint, in music, the art of combining melodies each of which is independent though forming part of a homogeneous texture. The term derives from the Latin for "point against point," meaning note against note in referring to the notation of plainsong. The academic study of counterpoint was long based on Gradus ad Parnassum (1725, tr. 1943) by Johann Joseph Fux (1660–1741), an Austrian theorist and composer. is the first European showing of the World Trade Center scheme and the Ground Zero masterplan and without doubt they stylistically hark back to Libeskind's symbolic and historical interpretation of Berlin's cityscape. So the transition from the Spree to the Hudson River could be interpreted as a logical transition in Libeskind's architectural evolution. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Counterpoint is a pragmatic and forthright showing of Libeskind's oeuvre and Matthias Reese does well in limiting the objects on show in the huge whitewashed whitewash, white fluid commonly used as an inexpensive, impermanent coating for walls, fences, stables, and other exterior structures. It varies in composition, being generally a mixture of lime (quicklime), water, flour, salt, glue, and whiting, with other ingredients such as molasses, water glass, or soap sometimes added. Mixed with size and colored, whitewash is occasionally used on interiors as calcimine. rooms of the old Prussian court building which now functions as the historical entrance to the Berlin Jewish Museum. The projects appear very generously displayed with only a maximum of two in each room. Models sit on enormous and slanting plinths covered in black sandpaper sandpaper, abrasive originally made by gluing grains of sand to heavy paper sheets. Today sandpaper is made primarily with quartz, aluminum oxide, or silicon carbide grains, and is graded according to the size of the grains. It is used for smoothing and polishing, for removing old paint or varnish, and for otherwise preparing wood surfaces for refinishing or other treatment. and grey, diagonally suspended sails highlight the dynamic forces even further. Apart from the models, only a few plans and quotations appear on the walls. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Throughout the show, video clips are projected directly on the wall planes relaying interviews or statements on Libeskind's work, for example, by Charles Jencks, Cecil Balmond or Michael Blumenthal, director of the Jewish Museum. It was Blumenthal who seized the opportunity to celebrate his museum's second anniversary of its opening with a retrospective of its architectural creator. It is also the first collaboration of the museum with another cultural institution, the London Barbican, where the exhibition will be on show during the autumn of 2004. Libeskind's farewell to Berlin is measured and reassured, giving every reason to believe that he can respond to the challenge of New York. Counterpoint--The Architecture of Daniel Libeskind, fudisches Museum, Berlin, until 14 December 2003 www.jmberlin.de LIBESKIND'S FAREWELL SHOW IN THE BERLIN JEWISH MUSEUM; CULLINAN GETS TOP WOOD AWARD; YOUNG CHAIR DESIGNERS IN ITALY; BRADFORD TO BE BLASTED FOR A SECOND TIME? AR+D AWARDS JUDGED; IS BIRMINGHAM'S BIG BLUE BLOB REALLY SO BAD? NEW PATTERNS FOR PRISONS, DO THEY WORK? VIEW FROM QUITO, ECUADOR |
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