Breaking Ground - Hardcover

Libeskind, Daniel; Crichton, Sarah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1573222925 ISBN 13: 9781573222921

Publisher: Riverhead Books, 2004

Synopsis

A noted architect shares his iconoclastic approach to the creation of public space, his ideas about tragedy and hope and the ways in which architecture can shape and memorialize human experience, and his unique vision for the construction of the 1776 Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site. 100,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Authors

Daniel Libeskind is an international figure in architecture and urban design. Libeskind is Principle Design Architect in Studio Libeskind, the firm he founded in 1990; the firm is working on major architectural commissions including cultural institutions, museums, concert halls, landscape projects, stage designs, and exhibitions around the world.

Daniel Libeskind is principal design architect in Studio Daniel Libeskind, which he founded in 1990.

Reviews

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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Edition details

• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1573222925
• ISBN 13: 9781573222921
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304