TY - JOUR

T1 - Encountering empty architecture

T2 - Libeskind’s Jewish Museum Berlin

AU - Reeh, Henrik

N1 - The present study contains five photographs by the author of Daniel Libeskinds Jewish Museum Berlin; four in black/white (taken 1999), one i color (taken 2009).

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - This essay is published in the Festschrift to art historian Donald Preziosi on his 75th birthday in 2016 and delves into the exploration of architectural perception and semiotic experience. The argument is the following: Claire Farago and Donald Preziosi once pointed out how recent art museums by architect Daniel Libeskind allow for altered relationships between exhibitions and visitors. Indeed, when Libeskind’s Jewish Museum Berlin was first opened in a vacant state during the years 1999-2001, the building itself provided the exhibit for initiatory visits. The present study hightlights the fragmentary process of groundbreaking encounters with this building. The text shows how an embodied and reflexive experience of its architectural interiors and dis-courses go beyond the simplistic symbolism one finds in mainstream interpretations of Libe-skind’s architecture as well as in certain discourses by Libeskind himself. In reality, his ext-ra-functional architecture in Berlin and his early presentations of it constitute a kaleidoscopic field of experience in which critical self-reflexion may occur.

AB - This essay is published in the Festschrift to art historian Donald Preziosi on his 75th birthday in 2016 and delves into the exploration of architectural perception and semiotic experience. The argument is the following: Claire Farago and Donald Preziosi once pointed out how recent art museums by architect Daniel Libeskind allow for altered relationships between exhibitions and visitors. Indeed, when Libeskind’s Jewish Museum Berlin was first opened in a vacant state during the years 1999-2001, the building itself provided the exhibit for initiatory visits. The present study hightlights the fragmentary process of groundbreaking encounters with this building. The text shows how an embodied and reflexive experience of its architectural interiors and dis-courses go beyond the simplistic symbolism one finds in mainstream interpretations of Libe-skind’s architecture as well as in certain discourses by Libeskind himself. In reality, his ext-ra-functional architecture in Berlin and his early presentations of it constitute a kaleidoscopic field of experience in which critical self-reflexion may occur.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - Donald Preziosi (1941-)

KW - Daniel Libeskind (1946-)

KW - Jewish Museum Berlin

KW - architectural analysis

KW - Perception of architecture

KW - Sequential experience

KW - photography

KW - Berlin

KW - Anamorphosis

KW - Exhibition Analysis

KW - Cultural Memory

KW - power production

KW - Meaning making

KW - Athens

KW - Donald Preziosi (1941-)

KW - Daniel Libeskind (1946-)

KW - Jewish Museum Berlin

KW - Architectural perception

KW - Architectural representation

KW - Palimpsest

KW - Semiotics

KW - Meaning making

KW - Anamorphosis

KW - Photography

KW - Sequential perception

UR - https://arthistoriography.wordpress.com/

M3 - Journal article

JO - Journal of Art Historiography

JF - Journal of Art Historiography

SN - 2042-4752

IS - 15 Tribute to Donald Preziosi on his 75th birthday (Festschrift)

M1 - 15/HR1

ER -