Architect Libeskind to lecture

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Services Editor

"Vessel for a nation's remorse," "the museum without an exit," "well of quietude...," "the presence of absence"-these are some of the terms that have described the experiential and daring architectural works of Daniel Libeskind, the brilliant, iconoclastic and often controversial figure in international architectural practice and urban design.

Libeskind will present a slide lecture, "Space of Encounter," at the School of Architecture and Planning at 5:30 p.m. April 7 in 146 Diefendorf Hall on the South Campus.

Libeskind has been referred to as the "architect of silence" because he considers architecture to be a spiritual domain, "a realm that cannot be visualized, an area of invisible presence since it deals with the unspeakable." Without spiritual content and without a contribution to a deeper understanding of our being, he says, there can be no significance in any building. It is what Eliot would call the "lucid stillness" of Libeskind's work that produces a profound sense of the ineffable.

Kent Kleinman, professor and chair of the Department of Architecture, notes that Libeskind has emerged in the past five years as one of the most prominent architects in the world and, although relatively young himself, "his ideas have influenced a new generation of architects and those interested in the future development of cities and culture."

Libeskind's practice extends from building major cultural institutions to concert halls, landscape and urban projects, stage design, installations and exhibitions. Among his prominent works are Berlin's strange and celebrated Jewish Museum, the much-debated Spiral Extension to London's Victoria and Albert Museum and other major projects in the U.S., Germany, Israel, Spain and Mexico.

He has taught and lectured at universities worldwide and has held many distinguished endowed and/or visiting professorships. He currently is a professor at the Hochschule fur Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, Germany; Louis Kahn Professor at Yale University and the Cret Chair at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the European Academy of Arts and Letters and the Akademie der Kunst. He has won many major architectural awards for his work, including the 1996 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Architecture and the 1996 Berlin Cultural Prize.

Further information on his architectural work, theoretical writings and credentials can be found at http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/jewishmuseum/index.htm. Photos of Libeskind projects also are at http://www.architecturemag.com/sep98/spec/libe.asp