Berlin's Jewish Museum to Open in 2001 - Brief Article

Art in America, Nov, 2000 by Christopher Phillips

After repeated postponements, Berlin's new Jewish Museum is officially slated to unveil its first exhibitions in September 2001, two and a half years after its dramatic DM 120-million (about $54-million) building, by architect Daniel Libeskind, opened its doors to the public. Libeskind's shimmering deconstructivist structure, whose zigzag floor plan is meant to evoke a shattered Star of David, has proved a powerful draw in its own right, attracting over 15,000 visitors a month to the empty museum. The building's emerging reputation as an architectural icon has even led to proposals that it be left unoccupied, as a kind of symbolic monument.

The museum's director, Michael Blumenthal, a former U.S. Treasury secretary who was born in Berlin, has confirmed that the haunting "voids" which Libeskind designed within the 107,000-square-foot structure will remain empty. Otherwise, however, he plans a full range of programs and activities for the space. The museum's permanent displays will tell the story of Jews in Germanic lands from Roman times to the present, with special attention to the devastating effects of the Holocaust and the slow postwar reconstruction of Jewish life in Germany. In addition to mounting conventional displays of historic objects, the museum will employ video and audio installations and feature an interactive information center.

Blumenthal insists that the museum can cater to the interests of a popular audience without sacrificing seriousness, and he anticipates half a million visitors a year. To handle such crowds, he has asked Berlin's cultural administration for an additional DM 10 million (around $4.5 million) to upgrade the building's climate controls. Without those sums, he warned, the museum's projected opening might have to be delayed again. Nevertheless, installation of permanent displays in the Libeskind building is scheduled to begin this month, and Blumenthal expects the Jewish Museum will open as planned next year, provided "nothing dramatic happens."