Jewish Museum – Berlin, Germany

The Jewish Museum Berlin is one of the most spectacular museum buildings in Germany. Located in Western Krenzberg, architect Daniel Libeskind's new building is a deconstructivist masterpiece. If you are in Berlin, you have to see and experience this building. The museum has a lovely restaurant with international Jewish specialties. It is also the place for a quick snack or a coffee break with homemade cake and cookies after a museum visit. During the summer the beautiful vast garden is an oasis of peace.

Outside: Daniel Libeskind’s building makes the visit a physical experience. Zig-zag best describes the form of the museum. The first line is a winding one with several kinks while the second line cuts through the whole building. At the intersections of these lines are empty spaces – “Voids” – which rise vertically from the ground floor of the building up to the roof. It is like an exploded tri-dimensional Star of David, coated in zinc, with sharp angles and narrow slits as windows. It is impossible to guess the building’s interior from the outside. It opened in fall 2001.

Inside: As you come in, you have to go downstairs, in a metaphoric immersion in the Jewish history. In the underground three white corridors intersect. The first and longest of these axes is the “Axis of Continuity.” The architect describes the “Axis of Continuity” as the continuation of Berlin's history, the connecting path from which the other axes branch off. The “Axis of Emigration” leads outside to the Garden of Exile (49 concrete stelae rise on a square plot, which is on a 12° gradient giving a sense of instability). The “Axis of the Holocaust” is a dead end. It becomes narrower and darker and leads through a heavy, black steel door into the Holocaust Tower, a bare concrete empty tower 24 meters high, neither heated nor insulated. It is lit by a single narrow slit high above the ground. The distress and emptiness of the Tower commemorates the victims of the Holocaust. It is a physical experience with intense emotional impact.From the basement a long staircase, which ends against a bare white wall, leads to the permanent exhibition, an excursus of Jewish-German history since the Diaspora, through Middle Age, until our days. The exhibit is very creative, interactive, and informative. For those interested in Jewish history, it is a unique museum. For everybody else, you will learn a lot and have a profound physical experience, thanks to the architectural masterpiece. (Last visited 11/2008)