The Space Of Encounter - Review

Architectural Review, The, June, 2001 by Boaz Ben Manasseh

By Daniel Libeskind. London: Thames and Hudson. 2001. [pound]22.95

It is astonishing that Daniel Libeskind can write so much nonsense without endangering his reputation. I fear that in certain circles it actually helps: Koolhaas's SMLXL, which has page after page of childish irritating claptrap, was almost immediately held in veneration by almost any architecture student who came across it. The literary method of these two is, essentially, that pioneered by the late Auberon Waugh and now mainly represented by Julie Burchill: you simply write down everything that comes into your head, however idiotic, and hope that enough of it will sound funny, or strike a chord with some nitwit. It seems to work well enough to sell.

This new book consists of the following elements: some lectures and speeches by Libeskind, often to lay audiences, usually helpful and intelligent where comprehensible, but occasionally questionable and silly and often quite repetitive; some few architectural drawings too small to read properly; some photographs, largely close-ups of nastily-built models; and many pages of drivel, for which the following example will suffice: 'The Eve of the Chicken is a phrase that moves toward the distended axiom, in which motion stalls at its maximum ridicules the movement of the cosmos'. None of this is in any useful order and is impossible to read consecutively.

What is this book? An art object? Why does the model of the interior of his Dresden synagogue scheme have 'Jesus' written in large Hebrew letters up on the ceiling? It is a shame, for The Space of Encounter has, in there somewhere, some intelligent and concise explanations of what he is up to, particularly in his moving and imaginative description of his proposals for the redevelopment of the Sachsenhausen SS Barracks site. He can describe things well when he wants to and he puts forward here his usual arguments for the V&A spiral in a cogent and convincing way (albeit with some misprints).

Libeskind is no exception to the general rule that architects cannot write about their own buildings. Someone is encouraging him to waste his time and energy in public on things he should be doing in private with his students.