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Interview with Daniel Libeskind
Kurt Andersen:
Last week, you couldn’t open a newspaper or newsmagazine without
seeing a picture of the architect Daniel Libeskind. His design proposal
for the World Trade Center site won the world’s most watched architecture
and urban planning competition. Maybe the most watched ever. Before now,
Libeskind was best known for his award-winning design of the new Jewish
Museum in Berlin. And he joins me now in our studio just 1,000 yards from
the World Trade Center site. Daniel Libeskind, welcome to Studio 360.
Daniel Libeskind:
Thank you.
Kurt Andersen:
Now Among the balls you've juggled to get this far, and the balls you
will continue to juggle for many years to come, has been the degree to
which what is built there-- in terms of the memorial, in terms of the
office buildings-- should or should not evoke what was there before, either
in duplicating the forms of the twin towers, evoking the destruction that
was wrought there. How driving and important was that consideration in
what you did?
Daniel Libeskind:
Well, I was very touched, as every one in the world has been touched by
this event and emotionally so. And when I walked around the site with
millions trying to fathom the tragedy and its scope, looking at the dimensions
of the space, I also saw when I descended the site those slurry walls.
And I was very moved that it wasn't only the destruction that took place
but also the revelation of that which stood and continues to stand on
the site. KA:
Those are the underground dams that basically hold back the Hudson River. DL:
Which are foundations, foundation walls. I was very moved and I thought
that also shifts the entire site away from something completely negative
and gives it a dignity and a spiritual character which these heroes deserve.
So of course how to balance that with the bustling life of a city. That's
what you're asking about and I really protected the area with cultural
buildings. I have a museum, September 11th Plaza, the educational wings.
So that the area has a specific gravity to it, it's not just an open park
that anyone can traverse in any way they want. There is a processional
way to get down to 30 feet. And then you're away from the cars, away from
traffic. And I think you have the privacy of the moment of reflection.
And then that allows the development of a highly charged city with offices,
with shops, with cafes, with all the activities we expect, not only would
we have known, but it's a series of unprecedented spaces. You know, the
wedge of light is a plaza like no other plaza that I know. KA:
Tell me what that is, the Wedge of Light. DL:
It's a plaza which is shaped in a certain form. And the buildings are
aligned in a specific way which allow every September 11, the light between
8:46 am when the first plane struck and 10:28 am when the second tower
collapsed, that these buildings will cast no shadows on that ground. So
it's about light. And light, space and materials are what create the public
spaces that building and cities have. KA:
You are, in addition to being an architect, are a great and even renowned
musician. As a kid I understand that you were an accordion virtuoso. And
last summer in Berlin you actually directed a Messiaen opera. And I've
also seen quotes that you see a kind of fungibility between music and
architecture, that you are literally inspired by pieces of music when
you design buildings. How does that work? DL:
Well, everyone knows that there is a sound to the world, the world has
a sound, the building has an acoustical quality, you hear, our sense of
balance is in our ear not in our eyes. So, of course music, and everything that it stands for, is part of a
human experience, a deeply emotional human experience. And of course the
Pythagoreans the ancient Greeks thought that the harmony of the spheres,
the harmony of the universe around us is the proportion which we see in
beautiful buildings and objects. So there always been a historical connection,
it's there, and music is part of the world. KA:
But are there pieces of music that have inspired, or will inspire this?
I mean is it Gershwin? DL:
Well of course I immediately thought of the music of the city of New York.
There is a sound to New York and one has to be in tune with that sound.
And as a sound also of people speaking in different voices and also of
the site speaking in its own voice. The site is already there, we don't
have to really, sort of find it. It's saying something to us. KA:
Can you give me an example, from the design as it exists today, and I
know it changes by the day and the week and evolves, of some gesture that
is attached to some piece of music? DL:
Well, it wouldn't be that literal. If you take the crescendo and the decrescendo
of the spaces of the Wedge of Light and the Park of Heroes, they go from
a wide open space and they gain in intensity as they narrow to the Plaza
of September 11, and then open to the site and go down, that is a musical
notation.
KA:
What is your best guess about how closely the finished project in 2012
or 2013 or whatever, will resemble the beautiful renderings that we've
seen from your studio? DL:
I think it will be very close and I think it will be better. As it evolves
and as it really gains the momentum and the content of all the stakeholders
and all the different people who will be a part of this process, all the
interests, all the community groups and all of the neighbors. I think
its going to be better, but you will recognize very strongly, very powerfully
this design, not another design.
KA:
Daniel Libeskind, thank you very much.
DL:
Thank you.
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