Looking Around

Fast Talk: With Daniel Libeskind

By Richard Lacayo | May 21, 2007 | +

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The Lee-Chin Crystal/Daniel Libeskind — Photos courtesy of Royal Ontario Museum

In the ordinary course of my work I travel around alot to see new buildings and shows and to talk to the people involved, artists, architects, museum directors, curators and so on. Sometimes I just to check in with people and see what they’re up to. I thought I would start to share brief bits of Q & A from the those talks, no more than three to five questions.

So here’s a few things from a conversation last week with Daniel Libeskind, architect, accordion virtuoso and all purpose advance man for the future, which took place at his office in New York. The Lee-Chin Crystal (named for a donor) is Libeskind’s fiercely conceived new addition to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. It opens next month.

LACAYO:  When I was coming through passport control on the way to Toronto recently the guy checking my passport asked me what was my business in Canada. I told him I was here to take a look at your new building. It turned out he was very aware of it but also kind of perplexed by it.  His reaction was to say to me: “What’s that about?’  I told him that would be my first question to you.  So, what’s that about?

LIBESKIND: I designed that building exactly to evoke that response.  This is not just something you already know.  It’s a reinvention. It’s really like opening a new window into the city’s dynamic and the culture’s dynamic. It’s not business as usual. It’s not just another black box. 

LACAYO:  All the same, people are going to ask what they always ask about your work. Why work in these thrusting, diagonal lines? What’s wrong with the straight ahead forms we already know? 

LIBESKIND: I love orthogonal architecture but it belongs to a certain period in history.  In a democratic society architecture has many possibilities.  We’re not meant to sort of become “rigor mortised” at some point and say “OK, This is it.  Now nothing more will happen.”  Economics is changing, art is changing, science is changing, everything is developing.  Why should architecture not also be part of new discoveries?  Wonders, new spaces that have not been built before — Why should we only see these things on TV or in virtual reality?  Why not go there in real space?

LACAYO:  After your addition to the Denver Art Museum opened last fall, some people complained that all those slanting, trapezoidal gallleries were too difficult for the display of art, that they created spaces too dynamic for the quiet contemplation of the works.

LIBESKIND: The display of art is also not set for eternity. It has changed over time. Look how differently things were displayed in the 19th century.  I think these buildings are very sympathetic to the art, because they energize. Curators are not boring people. They’re not people who are asleep.  They also want to create a new experience for the viewer. …. And by the way, not a single one of my clients has ever asked me to make a box.  None of them said to me — we want you to design something like somebody else. 

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  • S_Becker

    Mr. Libeskind’s defense of his architecture falls short for me. I agree with his contention that we need an architectural vanguard pushing the envelope of our profession, and that the box need not be the go-to solution for every situation. However his forms rebound too strongly in the opposite direction. If you think of a beautiful window, it has to do two things. It must stand on its own and speak for itself as an object in terms of craftsmanship, design, all the things we hold architecture to. But equally, it must be able to disappear, and just serve as a window, not interfering with the view.

    This is the challenge of architecture, to make something which has its own voice and can stand on its own, but equally can fade to the background and serve as a canvas for the potential events that occur with it. His buildings have quite a loud voice and satisfy the first criteria, but are so loud they can never become background. Thus, the occupants, and the events and happenings which this building is supposed to engender, are instead always reckoning with the building itself.

  • Anonymous

    We toured the Denver Art Museum in March. The building is very striking from the outside and is a major addition to the cityscape, particularly in conjuntion with the older buildings around it. However, it is difficult inside. The walls are all painted white. Those that slope forward now have tacky wooden “curbs” along the floor to keep people from hitting their heads. The back sloping walls are all scuffed as shoes hit the wall at the floor. Of course hanging art on the sloping walls is difficult. In addition the sharply angular exterior has begun leaking from all of the snow over the winter that accumulates in the angles.

  • amberglow

    His work is very unwelcoming and repetitive (and kinda mean and aggressive too).

    I’ll take Calatrava anytime.

  • Johann Mayles

    Libeskind is a hypocrite. What kind of architect hires another architect to design his own home? Libeskind would never put up with that sloping / slashing nonsense in his own home, so he hired a “safe” architect (one who used to do traditional interiors, no less) to give him a normal space to live in.

  • OCAD student

    I’ve been to Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin, and have also studied his deconstructivist approach to architecture through my design classes at OCAD (another strangely innovative Toronto architectural venture), but I have yet to judge the ROM addition because I have not seen the interior and therefore can not truly measure its success or lack thereof in accommodating artwork—its primary purpose. However, having a broader understanding of how Libeskind derives inspiration and infuses this fervent enthusiasm into his work, enables me to be more open-minded about his outright rejection of the past and his determination to create something that speaks a completely new language.

    The Jewish Museum is not some crude assembly of shards and voids without meaning, and therefore how can we, in a single glance, assume that is what the ROM is? In fact, the ROM, much like the Jewish Museum and NOT the Denver Art Museum, is a historical and cultural institution that houses much more than just artwork. Dramatic sloping walls and angles may not necessarily be a hinderance to many of the displays, since they don’t necessarily need to be hung on walls, plus I didn’t see any of the architectural after-thoughts mentioned about the Denver Art Museum above, at the Jewish Museum.

    The reality is that this building is now something people talk about and it brings a new vernacular to Toronto that didn’t exist before. It will thrive among the OCADs and the AGOs and long outlive the epidemic of condos threatening to destroy the entire fabric of Toronto’s inherent culture. We should be welcoming change of this sort rather than championing against it. Aren’t there more adverse and less inspriring structures to vehemently oppose in Toronto?

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