Product Description

More than a memoir. An autobiography of architecture, culture, and people.

One of the most influential architects of our time recounts an extraordinary life-from his childhood in post-war Poland as the son of Holocaust survivors to his controversial and dramatic recounting of the designing of the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #823899 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Less a memoir than a portrait of a life as told through architecture, Libeskind’s book traces his past and his numerous project commissions, including his most recent and renowned contribution to the design of the new World Trade Center. Libeskind sometimes skimps on historical detail, personal or otherwise, in favor of discussing his architectural preferences. However, tales from his youth in post-World War II Poland and engaging anecdotes about his strong-willed parents, who survived Soviet death camps, are interspersed throughout. For Libeskind, everything relates to architecture, and the book is filled with his beliefs about what good architecture should be and what inspires him. The book also features Libeskind’s many clashes with and strong opinions about other buildings, architects and developers; rightly or not, he often casts himself as a righteous, innovative David facing stodgy, wrongheaded Goliath, and he doesn’t hesitate to paint unflattering portraits of the Goliaths he has come up against. This is especially true in the final chapters, which detail the melodramatic quarrels he had with WTC site developer Larry Silverstein and Silverstein’s favored architectural firm. Libeskind’s enthusiastic, earnest prose will be familiar to anyone who has read his WTC proposal; he believes fervently in the importance of symbols, going so far as to say "some days I suspect that’s what people in Israel are really fighting over—not the territory, but the light." The WTC project has made Libeskind as much a household name as any architect could wish for, and with work on the site underway (he aptly describes it as organ replacement surgery "while keeping a network of veins and arteries pumping"), even lay readers may find this an intriguing introduction to the architect’s ideas and influences. 32 pages of photos.
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Review
'Mr Libeskind is at his best here.' -- The Art Newspaper 20041101 'What fuels Libeskind is passion. This is what makes him so skilled at storytelling.' -- Glasgow Herald 20041020 'Sprightly and often fascinating ... A witty insider's take on the convoluted bureaucracy and rampant egos that bedevil any serious contemporary architecture' -- Scotland on Sunday 20041107 'Libeskind ... is a brilliant populist ... [His] genius ... is never more clearly expressed than here in his own words' -- Scottish Sunday Herald 20041107 'This reader was seduced by the clearly unique philosophy of a man who may one day be viewed, without dispute, as a great architect.' -- Blueprint 20041107 'It is a surprisingly engaging and forgiving book.' -- RIBA Journal 20041107 'Powerful stuff, if unsettling'. -- Focus 20050201 'His new book ... illustrates so vividly that life is an exciting adventure which must be seized. ... This memoir of one man's journey brings together history, personal experience, our physical environment and a fresh international vision. ... Breaking Ground is beautifully produced with many remarkable photos of Daniel's work and ideas. You are left with a man whose profession and love of life coincide.' -- Jewish Telegraph 20041107 'A smart, chatty, self-assured survey of his life and work...It's great stuff, and his buildings emerge in a new light' -- Evening Standard 20050822 'His is a brave attempt to reinvent architecture - and one that has succeeded beyond all expectations ... Libeskind likes getting his teeth into the Big Themes ... Which he does, expertly' -- Guardian 'A global star of architecture ... [Breaking Ground] shows the same combination of sharp intelligence ... and straight sentimentality ... that has endeared him to many' -- Time Literary Supplement 20041029 'Just as Libeskind's mind effortlessly zaps back and forth between concrete references and abstract conceptualising, he is as populist as he is highbrow ... Uplifting and fascinating reading' -- Observer 20041029 'One of the most celebrated - and controversial - architects alive. ... He has produced a readable, compelling and highly unorthodox book - part polemic, part celebrity autobiography, part credo ... He really is - as many New Yorkers have come to believe - an architectural visionary.' -- Sunday Telegraph 20041107 'Never have I come across such a lively, totally original, and provocative account of one man's struggle at the cutting edge of architecture.' -- The Spectator 20041107 'His passion is hugely apparent ... even casual readers will find this an extraordinary tale of artistic and personal achievement'. -- Good Book Guide 20050101 'It's as though one is in the presence of a polished conjuror doing fascinating tricks with a pack of cards, making incidents in his life, and in the world, appear and disappear, effortlessly' -- Literary Review 20050205 'Absorbing and well crafted' -- Guardian 20050903 'Fascinating detail' -- Sunday Times 20050925

About the Author
Born in Poland to Holocaust survivors, Daniel Libeskind immigrated with his family to Israel in 1957, and settled in New York City in 1959. He is currently building museums in Denver, Boston, Toronto, and San Francisco, as well as commercial and cultural projects in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, England, and Ireland. He is principal design architect in Studio Daniel Libeskind, which he founded in 1990. In February 2003, Libeskind was chosen as master plan architect for the World Trade Center reconstruction site.

Customer Reviews

Childish Tale
At times merely banal, at others a cringing read, this silly little book might attract a few youngsters investigating architecture for the first time, but it will not engage or satisfy the adult mind. - For Libeskind, architecture need only be new and different in order to be good. Logically, of course, this does not follow, but that point is lost on the skittish author who carelessly makes this uncritical claim to support his work. In chirpy, passages Daniel tells us his design for the Holocaust Museum is the missing movement of an unfinished symphony - though details for this peculiar claim are never offered. Similarly, his choice of heart-tugging names for Ground Zero's `Park Of Heroes' and `Freedom Tower' are somberly given as evidence of his sensitive vision. But you have to wonder if it was aesthetics or a calculated marketing that capriciously set the latter's height at 1776 feet? That his designs are based on these and other superficial factors (such as the direction of the incoming terrorist's planes, not to mention the infamous `Wedge Of Light' which did not actually work), is glossed over in this intellectually-challenged narrative. These one-dimensional excuses serve to underscore his failure to understand scale, proportion or context, the core basis for quality architecture anywhere. Reading this book, I am reminded of sophomore architecture studies where insubstantial nonsense of this sort is commonly left to pubescent students. It is surprising to find a supposedly grown man in the sandbox playing these juvenile games today.

A Mean-Spirited Life
I enjoy biographies of creative people and occasionally veer into the architectural field. Brendan Gill's `Man of Many Masks' about Frank Lloyd Wright, and Margaret Heilbrun's `Inventing the Skyline' about Cass Gilbert provide intelligent and balanced insights into these fine minds. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Libeskind's book is a one-sided, tale of how he bettered almost everyone he came in contact with. From the start, when he claims to have upstaged musician, Itzhak Perlman, to his constant belittling of his teammates on the Ground Zero project, Libeskind believes he alone is a genius in a world of incompetents. Even when describing his first meeting with his eventual wife Nina, he says she was "so beautiful she must be stupid", - perhaps the most telling indication of how this arrogant man assesses the world and the people he encounters. Three quarters of the way through this vindictive and self-indulgent rant, I packed it in, in favor of Roger Kimball's `Art's Prospect', a compelling view of our age where celebrity too often triumphs over substance. The obviously insecure Libeskind is a case in point, and I'll be thankful when he gets the comeuppance he so richly deserves.

Big Head - Small Mind
It is hard to know what Libeskind hoped to accomplish with this oddball book. By his own admission, he is "more cornball than cosmopolite" (page 159), and granted no one will ever use the word "sophisticated" to describe either Daniel or Nina Libeskind. But most of this disjointed and confused story reads like a schoolgirl's diary hastily scribbled beneath the bedclothes. And with all the insecurity of such diaries, it is replete with smug and nasty comments about people Libeskind feels have been mean to him, or who have been critical of his work. Curiously, for a man who too frequently professes to be a genius, his own book portrays mostly him as puerile and petulant. Much of this book reveals Libeskind's deep-seated bitterness and jealousy towards his professional peers. He claims his internships with Richard Meier and Peter Eisenman were beneath him and he stormed out of their offices (pages 41 and 42) when asked to do the routine tasks that inform the careers of most novice practitioners. Even when describing his own designs, the writing is disappointingly inane. "MY building would not be about toilets", he proclaims a bit too proudly about his Jewish Museum project, implying that most other architects and buildings are only about lavatories. And, of the Nussbaum Museum he declares to his own amazement - "I called this project `the museum without an Exit', because for Nussbaum, there was no exit, (from Nazi persecutions). Defensive and embarrassing writing like this was common in this bumbling and very unsatisfying book.

I bought this biography looking for a glimpse into the mind of a supposedly creative person. What I got was a close look at a pompous architect who spent so much of his time bragging about himself, that he seems oblivious to humanity around him. Given how little Libeskind has actually built, such delusional arrogance should be embarrassing, but sensitivity or discretion are not the author's strong suit. The book lurches awkwardly between incessant ego-tripping, quasi-intellectual posturing, and cliched, self-pitying stories intended to suggest that the author is thoughtful, reflective and has learned from life experiences. But it all comes across as coldly calculated and patronizing. Somehow, one of life's lessons that the "genius" Daniel Libeskind never learned, is that compliments are really meaningful only if they come from someone other than himself.