Architecture News

Daniel Libeskind’s Line of Fire

By Laura Raskin

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Menorahmorph, silicone and stainless steel, 2004, New York.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Tin-coated copper, 1985, New York.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Masada, hand-worked and embossed silver, 1968, New York.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Repouss', punched, and cast silver, 1940, Baghdad, Iraq.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast and engraved silver, 1885, Providence, Rhode Island.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Hand-worked copper alloy, 1958, New York.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Parcel-gilt, repouss', appliqu', pierced, and cast silver, 1865, Russia.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Hand-worked silver, early 1930s, Heilbronn, Germany.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast copper alloy, mid-19th-early-20th century, Eastern Galicia or Western Ukraine
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Repouss', traced, punched, and cast silver, 1872-1921, Vienna, Austria.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast and traced copper alloy, 1920s, probably Munich, Germany.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast and acid-etched silver, second half 19th century, Germany.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast and silver-plated copper alloy, late 19th-early 20th century, possibly Germany.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Copper alloy with semiprecious stones, 1909-29, Jerusalem, Israel.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Die-stamped and cast copper alloy, 1776-80 with later additions, Braunschweig, Germany.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Chiseled, incised, and painted limestone, 1880-1930, Palestine.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Repouss', parcel-gilt, appliqu', and cast silver, early 19th century, Poland or Russia.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast and wrigglework copper alloy, 1816/1817, Germany.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast and silver-plated white metal and mold formed glass, 1900-05, K'ln-Braunsfeld, Germany.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Repouss', traced, punched, and cast copper alloy, 18th century with later additions, Italy.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Repouss', pierced, engraved, traced, punched, and cast silver, 1840s, Vienna, Austria.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Repouss', punched, and cast copper alloy, second half 19th century, Morocco.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Pierced, traced, punched, appliqu', and cast copper, 19th century, possibly Fez, Morocco.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Repouss', traced, punched, and cast copper alloy, 18th century, Netherlands.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast and chased copper alloy, possibly 19th century, Italy.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast and enameled copper alloy, 19th century, central Anti-Atlas Mountains, Morocco.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Copper alloy cast after lost-wax original, 18th-19th century, Italy.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast, repouss', spun, and parcel-gilt silver, 1903-26, Hanau, Germany.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast copper alloy, late 17th-early 18th century, Germany or Netherlands.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast, appliqu', and sheet metal copper alloy and engraved silver, 1756/57, Netherlands and Jamaica.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Repouss', appliqu', parcel-gilt, and cast silver and cast copper alloy, 1825-51, Warsaw, Poland.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Filigree, appliqu', and cast silver, semiprecious stones, and glass, first half 19th century, Poland or Russia.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Cast, engraved, and traced silver, 1867-72, Lviv, Ukraine.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Slipped, painted and glazed stoneware, 1807, Germany.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Wrigglework, engraved, pierced, appliqu', and cast pewter, 1750/51, Hanau, Germany.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Mold-pressed, repouss', appliqu', and cast silver, 1712-49, Venice, Italy.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire on view at The Jewish Museum
Jan Pogorzelski
Repouss', traced, engraved, punched, and cast silver, 1893, Warsaw, Poland.
Photo courtesy The Jewish Museum

Photo courtesy Christine McMonagle/The Jewish Museum

“Daniel Libeskind’s Line of Fire” runs through January 30, 2011, at The Jewish Museum in New York. Libeskind designed the exhibition using 40 menorahs from the museum’s collection. Click on the slide show button to see images.

Daniel Libeskind’s building signature is often characterized by a lightning-bolt scrawl, clearly visible in his designs for The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, the Jewish Museum in Berlin, and even “Villa Libeskind,” the prefab housing line he launched in 2010.

The latest rendition of the architect’s signature can be found in a small gallery in The Jewish Museum in New York, but it barely flickers.

The installation “A Hanukkah Project: Daniel Libeskind’s Line of Fire,” which opened November 19 and runs through January 30, 2011, features 40 menorahs from the museum’s collection. The menorahs, which range in age and provenance, sit on a jagged, red-painted wood table. Quotations about the spiritual nature of fire from a wide range of luminaries – Emily Dickinson, Yannai, and Jacques Derrida among them – are printed on the room’s blue walls, providing background and context for the undulating line of Hanukkah lamps of varying heights and shapes.

Every other year, the museum invites a contemporary artist to create a Hanukkah-themed installation. Susan L. Braunstein, curator of archaeology and Judaica, invited Libeskind to participate after working with him on a jury for the museum’s exhibition “Reinventing Ritual,” which closed earlier this year. “His style is so bold and innovative,” she said, and “he’s incredibly sensitive to memory.”

While Libeskind said yes the day after the museum asked him to create the installation, his busy schedule meant that he mostly collaborated from afar. Braunstein chose the menorahs (she spent seven years cataloguing all 1,002 in the collection). “They were some of my favorites,” she said of those in the exhibition, including Richard Meier’s tin-coated copper lamp (1985), each branch an iconic building motif in miniature; a spare, tomb-shaped limestone lamp from possibly late 19th-century Palestine; and Karim Rashid’s 2004 neon green silicone lamp, resembling a drop of spilled milk, mid-splash.

With Braunstein as his aide-de-camp, Libeskind chose the quotes, the paint colors, the typeface for all text, and of course, designed the table. “We had this great rhythm going. He was very particular,” said Braunstein.

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Laura Raskin, a former RECORD editor, writes about architecture. She recently moved with her family from Brooklyn, New York, to the Green Mountains of Vermont.