Daniel Libeskind,
Holocaust Tower © Bitter Bredt, Jewish Museum Berlin, 1999

The Jewish Museum exhibits the social, political and cultural history of the Jews in Germany from the 4th century to the present. The design of the Museum engenders a fundamental rethinking of architecture in relation to its program. The new extension was completed in January 1999, 10% under budget, and opened fully installed to the public in September 2001. SDL worked with Lubic & Woehrlin Gmbh to complete this project. In five years, more than 4,000,000 people have visited the museum.

"Between The Lines"

The Jewish Museum is a museum which explicitly thematises and integrates, for the first time in post-war Germany, the history of the Jews in Germany and the repercussions of the Holocaust. The museum exhibits the social, political and cultural history of Jews in Berlin from the 4th Century to the present. The new extension is connected to the Baroque building via underground axial roads. The longest road leads to the "Stair of Continuity" and to the Museum itself, while the second leads to the "Garden of Exile and Emigration" and the third to the dead end of the "Holocaust Void." The displacement of the spirit is made visible through the straight line of the Void which cuts the ensemble as a whole, connecting the museum exhibition spaces to each other via bridges. The Void is the impenetrable emptiness across which the absence of Berlin's Jewish citizens is made apparent to the visitor. [read more]