Virtuoso Libeskind feels pressure of a deadline.

As a child, growing up in the still anti-Semitic Poland after World War II, a young Jewish boy named Daniel Libeskind aspired to be a classical accordion player. And he almost made it.

Honored at age 12 with the Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship, along with now-renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman, Libeskind aggressively set out to transition his talents to becoming a classical pianist. But, after moving to New York, the young son of Holocaust survivors decided he was more interested in architecture.

"To this day, my wife asks me about this, because I used to earn more money at 13 years old than I do now," Libeskind said with his infectious giggle. "I don't think that I've given up music. Architecture is a deeply musical art as I practice it, and it is historically. It's about the score of a performance. It's about music--the acoustics of a space--and it's about harmony--how well the different aspects come together in a civic space." In his late teens, Libeskind began his studies at Manhattan's exclusive Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, where, if one is lucky enough to be admitted, tuition is free. Graduating in 1970, he obtained his master's degree in history and theory of architecture a year later from the University of Essex in England.

A couple of years earlier, Libeskind also had met his wife, Nina, while at a camp for families of Holocaust survivors in upstate New York (she was accompanying a friend).

The two married in 1969 and she has handled his business dealings ever since. Many say Daniel and Nina Libeskind make an often contrasting pair, she being precise and business-like, he seemingly almost mischievous.

In most of his biographies, the years between 1971 and 1989 leave a critical gap. But as Libeskind points out, those years were far from a waste.

He didn't design any buildings, instead choosing to work in several firms and teach architecture in various locations, including Kentucky, London and Toronto. Then, in 1978, he became head of the school of architecture at Crankbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. where he remained for seven years.

"People ask me if I was wasting my time," Libeskind said of his years before designing buildings. "No, I was a teacher, I headed the school of architecture (and) I had exhibits of my work. I was actually well known in architecture without building a building."

In 1985, Libeskind started his own school, the Architecture Intermundium in Milan, Italy. Declining to award degrees, he instructed 12 to 15 students, as he described earlier this year to Smithsonian magazine. "The institute was founded as an alternative to traditional school of to the traditional way of working in an office," he said. "That's the meaning of the word 'Intermundium,' a word I discovered in (the works of 19th century poet Samuel) Coleridge. The school was between two worlds, neither the world of practice nor of academia."

But Libeskind's work shifted to a different scale in 1989 when he won a design contest for the Jewish Museum in Berlin, which opened in 2001.

Since then, notable projects Libeskind has designed include the city museum for Osnabruck Germany and the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, England, which opened in July 2002.

Libeskind's design for the Imperial War Museum North recently won the British Construction Industry Building Award, the top prize in the United Kingdom for construction excellence.

Libeskind has also directed or is directing several projects in the United States, Canada and Mexico. He is leading the transformation design of the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada.

Despite all his accolades, however, Libeskind still has never designed a commercial office building. And this has made some nervous.

Soon after Libeskind's design was picked by the Port Authority, World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein hired his own architect David Childs to work on the Trade Center design. Although Childs' design has not been released to the public, it is described as more symmetrical and straight-laced than Libeskind's, which features a 1,776-foot spire--symbolic of the year of the nation's independence.

Under Gov. Pataki's orders, the two have collaborated on a design to be released the week of Dec. 15.

"The pressure is enormous," Libeskind said. "We're working around the clock."

In 2001, Libeskind wrote an introduction to one of his books, titled "The Space of Encounter."

"Ever since I began architecture, I've had an abhorrence of conventional architecture offices," he wrote. "There was something about the atmosphere of redundancy, routine and production that made me allergic to all forms of specialization and so-called professionalism."

Asked about this quote, Libeskind said he was referring to the way a building was produced, not how it is used.

"If it's produced in a bureaucratic way with a bunch of alienated people working a production line--that is never going to produce a beautiful city."

However, with Childs having ultimate design control, Libeskind is trying to be as influential as possible.

"It's a challenge because we don't have the leading role in the design," Libeskind said. "It has to be the right tower in every sense, functionally, symmetrically (and) the way it appears in the sky and restores the skyline."

He is also writing a book on his experiences with the World Trade Center, published by Penguin Books. Some of the proceeds will benefit Windows of Hope, a charity dedicated to the families of restaurant workers killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.

And while he doesn't like to rate a proudest moment in his career, Libeskind said he is constantly inspired.

"I never consider architecture to be just about style. It's about people, it's about desires, it's about how to fulfill those desires and how to give something more than just the containment of space, but how to open that space to new possibilities of use, of imagination and to creativity. You learn something new every day."