TRANSNATIONAL IDENTITY AND ITS REPRESENTATION

Transcription

1 BEING IN WANDERING TRANSNATIONAL IDENTITY AND ITS REPRESENTATION Mitzvah, Concept for the Danish Jewish Museum Daniel Libeskind 0/15

2 Premise The weakening of the Nation-State is questioning the very existence of a unique national identity. World spread Jewish museums are an important reality to investigate, in order to understand how a community can exhibit and communicate its culture and history. Subject of the research Present throughout the world, Jewish museums explore and put on display the complexity of the Jewish culture through those objects and those rituals that have for centuries marked the everyday life of the Jewish community. Despite being present in every Jewish Museum, the Holocaust topic deserves a separate treatment as much as it needs separate museums. The use of biographies, photographs and personal stories helps the visitor to identify himself with the tragedy of the individuals, leading him to go beyond the simple and aseptic historical data. Time lapse: Methodology Analysis of some Jewish and Holocaust Museums considered as particularly relevant for their architecture, display techniques and content, in order to find out the most suitable and effective way for communicating culture and memory through exhibition. Goals To find out what are the most common ways of exhibiting jewish culture and memory in Museums and define their real effectiveness on visitors understanding. RESEARCH STRUCTURE Jüdisches Museum Wien, Wien, Austria Pla-net Architects 1/15

3 Introduction 1. Being the other. When the sense of belonging goes beyond political boundaries 1.1. When national history is not enough to define identity: the displaced communities 1.2. Historic and contemporary diasporas: how to preserve his own identity in uprooting? 1.3. The Wandering Jew. The paradigm of a dispersed community 2. Musealization of the community identity 2.1. Museum display of the other: the risk of historical partiality and stereotype 2.2. The museum: a place of self-celebration or a space for mutual understanding? 2.3. Crystallisation of a past that no longer exists or form of identity salvation? 3. Representing his own culture and memory: the case of Jewish museums 3.1. Judaism and architectural space 3.2. The Museums of Jewish Culture 3.3. Holocaust museums: communicating the horror Conveying identity and memory: exhibition strategies and architectural languages Bibliography Appendix A: Mapping of Jewish museums Appendix B: Relevant case-studies RESEARCH INDEX Jüdisches Museum Wien, Wien, Austria Pla-net Architects 2/15

4 Key Elements: ethnicity religion common interests or ideology the accessibility and ready acceptance of the idea by diverse groups of self-definition usually associated with cultural behaviors, for example, language, custom, belief, history, dress, and material culture 1 BEING THE OTHER (Cfr. F. S. Kaplan) Beit Hatfutsot, Tel Aviv, Israel Patrick Gallagher 3/15

5 Key Elements: objects local history community history There are three levels in the Identity representation negotiation: 1. the identity of those who encodes the representation 1. the identity of those who decodes this representation 1. the identity of those who are represented (Cfr. F. McLean) 2 MUSEALIZATION OF THE COMMUNITY IDENTITY Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle, USA OSKA Architects 4/15

6 Key Elements: objects rituals local history global history Jewish museum should be Jewish Daniel Libeskind a Jewish Museum could be not so much about establishing the identity of Jewish artifacts, but about putting these artifacts into question without providing answers the architecture of this museum would be questioning rather than expressing Peter Eisenman 3 THE MUSEUMS OF JEWISH CULTURE The Jewish Museum London, London, United Kingdom Long & Kentish Architects 5/15

7 Key Elements: pictures voices names personal stories Conosco i fatti e gli avvenimenti; conosco lo svolgimento della tragedia attimo per attimo, ma questa conoscenza, venendo dall esterno, non ha nulla a che vedere con la comprensione. C è in tutto ciò una parte che resterà sempre misteriosa; una specie di zona proibita, inaccessibile alla ragione. Per fortuna, del resto. Senza questo 3 HOLOCAUST MUSEUMS Elie Wiesel, L ebreo errante Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York, USA Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates 6/15

8 APPENDIX A: MAPPING OF JEWISH MUSEUMS 7/15

9 APPENDIX A: MAPPING OF HOLOCAUST MUSEUMS 8/15

10 Jewish Museums Holocaust Museums Jüdisches Museum Wien, Wien, Austria (1896). New display by Planet Architects (2011). Musée Juif de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium (opening 2014) - Matador/ADN/Archiscénographie. Danish Jewish Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark (2004) - Daniel Libeskind. Jüdische Museum Berlin, Berlin, Germany (1999) - Daniel Libeskind. Jüdisches Museum München, Munich, Germany (2007) - Martin Kohlbauer. Beit Hatfutsot, Tel Aviv, Israel (1978). Ongoing redesign - Patrick Gallagher. MEIS - Museo Nazionale dell Ebraimo e della Shoah, Ferrara, Italy (ongoing) - Studio Arco. Galicja Żydowskie Muzeum, Krakow, Poland (2004). Museum of the History of the Polish Jews, Warsaw, Poland (opening 2013) - Rainer Mahlamäki. The Jewish Museum London, London, United Kingdom (1932). Widened and refurbished in Long & Kentish Architects. The Jewish Museum, New York, NY, USA (1904). Refurbished in Ralph Appelbaum. Jewish Contemporary Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA (1998) - Daniel Libeskind. APPENDIX B: RELEVANT CASE-STUDIES National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, PA, USA (2010 ) - Ennead Architects, Patrick Gallagher. Anne Frank Huis, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Since Felix Nussbaum Haus, Osnabrück, Germany (1998) - Daniel Libeskind. National Monument Kamp Vught, Vught, The Netherlands (2002) - Claus en Kaan. Stiftung Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, Berlin, Germany (2005) - Peter Eisenman. Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel. Since United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, USA (1993) - James Ingo Freed, Ralph Appelbaum. Holocaust Museum Houston, Houston, TX, USA (1996) - Ralph Appelbaum, Mark Mucasey. Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York, NY, USA (1997) - Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates. The Holocaust Memorial Center, Farmington Hills, MI, USA (2004) - Neumann/Smith and Associates. Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, Skokie, IL, USA (2009) - Stanley Tigerman. Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, Los Angeles, CA, USA (2010) - Belzberg Architects. 9/15

11 Jüdisches Museum Wien, Wien, Austria, 1896 Seven Questions exhibition display, Pla-net Architects, 2011 APPENDIX B: RELEVANT CASE-STUDIES 10/15

12 Danish Jewish Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2004 Daniel Libeskind APPENDIX B: RELEVANT CASE-STUDIES 11/15

13 MEIS - Museo Nazionale dell Ebraismo Italiano e della Shoah, Ferrara, Italy, ongoing Studio Arco APPENDIX B: RELEVANT CASE-STUDIES 12/15

14 Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel, Moshe Safdie (masterplan and new history museum, 1997) APPENDIX B: RELEVANT CASE-STUDIES 13/15

15 Holocaust Museum Houston, Houston, TX, USA, 1996 Ralph Appelbaum, Mark Mucasey APPENDIX B: RELEVANT CASE-STUDIES 14/15

16 Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, Skokie, IL, USA, 2009 Stanley Tigerman APPENDIX B: RELEVANT CASE-STUDIES 15/15