the power of tilty lines
After a recent diatribe about Libeskind's Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, posted here, I received more than one angry email. Why was I so uncharitable towards Libeskind? How could I be so dismissive of a building which I hadn't seen?
Well, let me put those concerns to rest. Here I am, pictured below, at the Jewish Museum. In Copenhagen. And do you know what? As I visited, expecting to dismiss the building as more smoke-n-mirrors, a funny feeling came over me. Libeskind's wonky geometries--meant to invoke the "disorientation" of Danish Jews during the Holocaust, took over my body. Filled with a sense of disorientation echoing my European Jewish progenitors, my body began contorting itself into bizarre shapes--intersecting oblique lines and tilted planes. I started to execute a bizarre dance, alarming myself and passers-by. Finally, I had understood, and physically, the power of this type of architecture. I repent. I will never again make fun of Libeskind. Or his literal-mindedness. Or his constant reuse of the same formal devices. Or his "tragedy opportunism". He wins. QED.
* joshua, 8/03/2004 08:40:35 PM
