A preliminary discussion about Deconstructivist style in Architecture, to support Architectural Thesis " The Forum - Design Museum". This theory was initiated by French Philosopher Jacques Derrida.

2. A LITTLE CONTRIBUTION……
As Post-Modernism became increasingly commercialized and
appropriated by developers in the overheated construction market in
Europe and America in the early 1980s, a new architectural average grade
became increasingly restless, and the public began to expect something
new. Post - Modernism fell victim to the consumer mentality it celebrated,
only able to manage a lifecycle half as long as that of the modern canon it
originally sought to displace. It was displaced by Deconstructivism, in
which the pattern that Post-Modernism had established of using a polemic
to explain and promote both built and unbuilt work was repeated with a
subtle twist.
So, this is my little contribution on understanding
contemporary art, especially architecture and design. It is not written for
architects and designers (they are supposed to already know that), but for
normal people who want to know something more about what's going on
now in architecture and understand it. So I have to warn experts and
"experts" that some simplifications are necessary, but basically the point is
there.
Balanced, hierarchical relationship between forms creates an
unified whole. Pure forms were used to produce "impure", skewed,
geometric compositions placed in conflict to produced an unstable,
restless geometry. Similarly, Deconstructivism sought to challenge the
values of 'harmony, unity, and stability', and proposed the view that 'the
flaws are intrinsic to the structure'.
MUKUND D. MUNDHADA

3. INTRODUCTION...

4. What I feel is if someone wants to think and feel about Deconstructivism, the
person will have to stare at Constructivism. Because, in any ways,
Deconstructivism is the forthfollowing stage of Constructivism. So, shall we? . .
CONSTRUCTIVISM
DEFINITION
Constructivism is a philosophy of learning founded on the premise that, by
reflecting on our experiences, we construct our own understanding of the
world we live in. Each of us generates our own “rules” and “mental
models,” which we use to make sense of our experiences. Learning,
therefore, is simply the process of adjusting our mental models to
accommodate new experiences.
There are several guiding principles of constructivism:
1.Learning is a search for meaning. Therefore, learning must start with the
issues around which people are actively trying to construct meaning.
2.Meaning requires understanding wholes as well as parts. And parts
must be understood in the context of wholes. Therefore, the learning
process focuses on primary concepts, not isolated facts.
3.In order to teach well, we must understand the mental models that
students use to perceive the world and the assumptions they make to
support those models.
4.The purpose of learning is for an individual to construct his or her own
meaning, not just memorize the “right” answers and regurgitate someone
else’s meaning. Since education is inherently interdisciplinary, the only
valuable way to measure learning is to make the assessment part of the
learning process, ensuring it provides people with information on the
quality of their learning.

5. Constructivism is a psychological theory of knowledge i.e.
epistemology which argues that humans generate knowledge and
meaning from their experiences. Constructivism is not a specific
pedagogy, although it is often confused with Constructionism, an
educational theory developed by Seymour Papert. Piaget's theory of
Constructivist learning has had wide ranging impact on learning theories
and teaching methods in education and is an underlying theme of many
education reform movements. Research support for constructivist
teaching techniques has been mixed, with some research supporting
these techniques and other research contradicting those results.
HOW CONSTRUCTIVISM IMPACTS LEARNING?
Constructivism calls for the elimination of a standardized
curriculum. Instead, it promotes using curricula customized to the
students’ prior knowledge. Also, it emphasizes hands-on problem solving.
Under the theory of constructivism, educators focus on making
connections between facts and fostering new understanding in students.
Instructors tailor their teaching strategies to student responses and
encourage students to analyze, interpret, and predict information.
Teachers also rely heavily on open-ended questions and promote
extensive dialogue among students.
Constructivism calls for the elimination of grades and standardized testing.
Instead, assessment becomes part of the learning process so that
students play a larger role in judging their own progress.

6. There are many Architects who are working in the context of
Deconstructivism all over the world. It started from French philosopher
Jacques Derrida…..
INTRODUCTION
Derrida began speaking and writing publicly at a time when the French
intellectual scene was experiencing an increasing rift between what could
broadly speaking be called "phenomenological" and "structural" approaches
to understanding individual and collective life. For those with a more
phenomenological bent, the goal was to understand experience by
comprehending and describing its genesis, the process of its emergence
from an origin or event. For the structuralists, this was precisely the false
problem, and the "depth" of experience could in fact only be an effect of
structures which are not themselves experiential. It is in this context that in
1959 Derrida asks the question: must not structure have a genesis, and must
not the origin, the point of genesis, be already structured, in order to be the
genesis of something?
In other words, every structural or "synchronic" phenomenon has a history,
and the structure cannot be understood without understanding its genesis.
At the same time, in order that there be movement, or potential, the origin
cannot be some pure unity or simplicity, but must already be articulated—
complex—such that from it a "diachronic" process can emerge. This
originary complexity must not be understood as an original positing, but
more like a default of origin, which Derrida refers to as iterability, inscription,
or textuality. It is this thought of originary complexity, rather than original
purity, which destabilises the thought of both genesis and structure, that
sets Derrida's work in motion, and from which derive all of its terms,
including deconstruction…..

7. DECONSTRUCTIVISM IN ARCHITECTURE
It also called as deconstruction, is a development of Postmodern
Architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of
fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or
skin, non-rectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the
elements of architecture, such as structure and envelope. The finished
visual appearance of buildings that exhibit the many deconstructivist
"styles" is characterized by a stimulating unpredictability and a controlled
chaos.
Important events in the history of the deconstructivist movement
include the 1982 Parc de la Villette architectural design competition
(especially the entry from Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman and Bernard
Tschumi's winning entry), the Museum of Modern Art’s 1988
Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition in New York, organized by Philip
Johnson and Mark Wigley, and the 1989 opening of the Wexner Center for
the Arts in Columbus, designed by Peter Eisenman. The New York exhibition
featured works by Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas, Peter
Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelb, and Bernard Tschumi. Since the
exhibition, many of the architects who were associated with
Deconstructivism have distanced themselves from the term. Nonetheless,
the term has stuck and has now, in fact, come to embrace a general trend
within contemporary architecture.

8. Originally, some of the architects known as Deconstructivists were
influenced by the ideas of the FRENCH PHILOSOPHER JACQUES DERRIDA.
Eisenman developed a personal relationship with Derrida, but even so his
approach to architectural design was developed long before he became a
Deconstructivist. For him Deconstructivism should be considered an
extension of his interest in radical formalism. Some practitioners of
deconstructivism were also influenced by the formal experimentation and
geometric imbalances of Russian constructivism. There are additional
references in deconstructivism to 20th-century movements: the
modernism/postmodernism interplay, expressionism, cubism, minimalism
and contemporary art. The attempt in deconstructivism throughout is to
move architecture away from what its practitioners see as the constricting
'rules' of modernism such as "form follows function," "purity of form," and
"truth to materials."

9. JAQUES DERRIDA – THE PIONEER….
Derrida's method consisted in demonstrating all the forms and varieties
of this originary complexity, and their multiple consequences in many fields.
His way of achieving this was by conducting thorough, careful, sensitive, and
yet transformational readings of philosophical and literary texts, with an ear
to what in those texts runs counter to their Apparent Systematicity (structural
unity) or Intended Sense (authorial genesis). By demonstrating the aporias
and ellipses of thought, Derrida hoped to show the infinitely subtle ways that
this originary complexity, which by definition cannot ever be completely
known, works its structuring and destructuring effects.
At the very beginning of his philosophical career Derrida was concerned
to elaborate a critique of the limits of phenomenology. His first lengthy
academic manuscript, written as a dissertation for his diplôme d'études
supérieures and submitted in 1954, concerned the work of Edmund Husserl.
In 1962 he published Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry: An Introduction,
which contained his own translation of Husserl's essay. Many elements of
Derrida's thought were already present in this work. In the interviews
collected in Positions (1972), Derrida said: "In this essay the problematic of
writing was already in place as such, bound to the irreducible structure of
'deferral' in its relationships to consciousness, presence, science, history and
the history of science, the disappearance or delay of the origin, etc. this essay
can be read as the other side (recto or verso, as you wish) of Speech and
Phenomena."
Derrida first received major attention outside France with his lecture,
"Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences“. The
conference at which this paper was delivered was concerned with
structuralism, then at the peak of its influence in France, but only beginning
to gain attention in the United States.

10. ''Deconstructivism'' has been the talk of the architecture world for
the last season, the latest trend to excite an increasingly fashion-conscious
architectural public. To speak the word now is to think less about the
architecture itself than about the peculiar nature of architectural culture
right now - of late, the word ''deconstructivism'' has tended to call to mind
''trend'' and ''publicity'' more than any specific buildings.
Divorced from all the hoopla, what is deconstructivism itself? It is
easier to say what it is not. It is not post-modernism, which depends heavily
on the re-use of historical elements; neither is it conventional modernism,
which aspires toward a cool, ordered rationality. Deconstructivism is highly
theoretical; much of its output exists only in the form of models, and many
of these designs are so self-consciously bizarre that they are not likely ever
to move into the realm of real buildings. If there is any way to summarize
this new approach, it would be to say that its proponents want to change
our fundamental perceptions of buildings. They do not accept the
conventions of architectural culture - floors, walls, windows, doors, and
ornamentation. Neither are they comfortable with conventional
geometries, or traditional architectural space.
Deconstructivism is not scenographic, or picturesque, or pretty. To
the contrary, it can be not a little harsh and mean. The style, if it can be
called a style, owes a major debt - and certainly its name - to Russian
Constructivism, the approach that reached its height in the 1920's. Its
practitioners attempted to create forms that intensified our perceptions of
basic geometries and structures.

11. Deconstructivism, meanwhile, maintains a level of self-criticism, as well as
external criticism and tends towards maintaining a level of complexity.
Some architects identified with the movement, notably Frank Gehry, have
actively rejected the classification of their work as deconstructivist.The
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao by Frank Gehry on the Nervión River in
downtown Bilbao, Spain.
Critics of deconstructivism see it as a purely formal exercise with
little social significance. Kenneth Frampton finds it "elitist and detached.“
Other criticisms are similar to those of deconstructivist philosophy—that
since the act of deconstruction is not an empirical process, it can result in
whatever an architect wishes, and it thus suffers from a lack of consistency.
Today there is a sense that the philosophical underpinnings of the beginning
of the movement have been lost, and all that is left is the aesthetic of
deconstruction. Other criticisms reject the premise that architecture is a
language capable of being the subject of linguistic philosophy, or, if it was a
language in the past, critics claim it is no longer. Others question the
wisdom and impact on future generations of an architecture that rejects the
past and presents no clear values as replacements and which often pursues
strategies that are intentionally aggressive to human senses.
At the end, deconstructivism is more likely to take its place in the
history of theoretical architecture than in the pantheon of major styles. It
is a correction in the architectural culture, and in some ways a valuable
one, given post-modernism's love of what is lush and indulgent. But if the
response to this is only to be the hermetic approach of deconstructivism,
then the movement will be remembered more for its sound and fury than
for anything else - not as a phenomenon that has enlarged the possibilities
of architecture, but one that has narrowed them…………

12. For this reason, there must be a generation style which would help
the designer to provide the design a better detailed quality. So, there is
the new Generating Profile which, for sure, plays a vital role in designing
a complex monument or even structure which results in the unique
product. This method includes various styles which could be used as per
the design asks….
But What method, what system, should an architect use to design a
building? How are programmatic needs and context – with their degrees
of freedom and constraints – translated into architectural design?
Regardless of their complexity, the tasks and decisions involved can
be formalized as an algorithm. As such, algorithms provide a framework
for articulating and defining both input data and procedures. This
formalization can promote structure and coherency, while systemically
maintaining full traceability of all input data. Algorithms’ output can now
be directly visualized, enabling their use as a generative design tool. Since
algorithms provide the benefits of scalability and permutability, multiple
variations of a scheme are easily generated. A slight tweaking of inputs or
process leads to an instant adaptation of output. The question arises to
what extent the codification of a process through an algorithm has the
ability to influence and alter the process itself. Can the structure,
grammar, and logic of the language used to depict the algorithm have a
relevance as per the design, and can elements of this logic be embedded
into the architecture? Can the language itself provide a basis for
architecture?

13. The Building Algorithm...

14. ALGORITHMIC SIMULATION . . .

15. ALGORITHMIC SIMULATION . . .

16. ALGORITHMIC OPTIMIZATION . . .

17. ALGORITHMIC OPTIMIZATION . . .

18. ALGORITHMIC OPTIMIZATION . . .

19. ALGORITHMIC PERMUTATION . . .

20. ALGORITHMIC PERMUTATION . . .

21. ALGORITHMIC PERMUTATION . . .

22. ALGORITHMIC PERMUTATION . . .

23. ALGORITHMIC GENERATION . . .

24. ALGORITHMIC GENERATION . . .

25. ALGORITHMIC GENERATION . . .

26. ALGORITHMIC GENERATION . . .

27. ALGORITHMIC GENERATION . . .

28. ALGORITHMIC GENERATION . . .

29. ALGORITHMIC TRANSFORMATION . . .

30. ALGORITHMIC TRANSFORMATION . . .

31. ALGORITHMIC TRANSFORMATION . . .

32. ALGORITHMIC TRANSFORMATION . . .

33. ALGORITHMIC TRANSFORMATION . . .

34. ………STYLES OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE
During the 1960s modernist architecture was still a
widespread and powerful force. Buildings in the modernist style
were part of the environment of virtually every urban area in
America, and new ones were being erected every day. Although it
was becoming increasingly evident that modernism had failed to
meet its idealistic goals of raising the human spirit, it was still a
basically good style and method in which to construct buildings.
However, by the 1960s the modernist style began to be recognized
as just one of many possible approaches. Throughout the decade
architects began to branch out in various directions.
The Modernist Influence

35. MINIMALISM
BRUTALISM
EXPRESSIONISM
BAHUAS

36. MODERNISM
HIGH-TECH
POST-MODERNISM
INTERNATIONAL STYLE

37. FORMALISM
ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE DECONSTRUCTIVISM
STRUCTURALISM

38. There are many Architects who are working in the context of
Deconstructivism all over the world. It started from French philosopher
Jacques Derrida…..
ZAHA HADID has undertaken some high-profile interior
work,too,including the Mind Zone at the Millennium Dome in London.
Ongoing projects include: The 20,000-seat Aquatics Centre for London, one
of the new venues being constructed for the 2012 Summer Olympics. While
she was previously slated for work in the Docklands area of Melbourne, it
has since been announced that architect Norman Foster will be designing it
instead. The MAXXI (National Museum of the 21st Century Arts) in Rome.
The Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan.
—Zaha Hadid.
An Iraqi born British citizen has been chosen
as the 2004 Laureate of the Pritzker
Architecture Prize marking the first time a
woman has been named for this 26 year old
award. Hadid, who is 53, has completed one
project in the United States, the Richard and
Lois Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art
in Cincinnati, Ohio; and is currently
developing another to co-exist with a Frank
Lloyd Wright structure, the Price Tower Arts
Center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

39. ZAHA HADID was born October 31, 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. She
received a degree in Mathematics from the American University of Beirut
before moving to study at the Architectural Association School of
Architecture in London. After graduating she worked with her former
teachers, Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis at the Office for Metropolitan
Architecture, becoming a partner in 1977. It was with Koolhaas that she met
Peter Rice who gave her support and encouragement early on, at a time
when her work seemed difficult to build. In 1980 she established her own
London-based practice. During the 1980s she also taught at the Architectural
Association. She has also taught at prestigious institutions around the world;
she held the Kenzo Tange Chair at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard
University, the Sullivan Chair at the University of Illinois School of
Architecture in Chicago, guest professorships at the Hochschule für Bildende
Künste in Hamburg, the Knolton School of Architecture, at the Ohio State
University, the Masters Studio at Columbia University, New York and the Eero
Saarinen Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale University, New
Haven, Connecticut. In addition, she was made Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters and Fellow of the American Institute
of Architects. She is currently Professor at the University of Applied Arts
Vienna in Austria. Theoretically influential and groundbreaking, a number of
Hadid's winning designs were initially never built: notably, The Peak Club in
Hong Kong (1983) and the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales (1994). In 2002
Hadid won the international design competition to design Singapore's one-
north masterplan. In 2005, her design won the competition for the new city
casino of Basel, Switzerland. In 2004 Hadid became the first female recipient
of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture's equivalent of the Nobel
Prize. Previously, she had been awarded a CBE for services to architecture.

40. DECONSTRUCTIVISM BY HADID.. .

41. LILIUM TOWER, WARSAW...
The proposed addition to the Warsaw
skyline is a light, transparent structure with
a strong sense of identity and character.
Rising to a height of 240 meters, the
tower’s slender form complements the
Palace of Culture and other towers in the
vicinity, creating its own distinctive profile
within an emerging
cluster of tall buildings. With a gross area
of 101,205m2 the tower comprises of
72,027m2 of leasable area; consisting of
luxury residential apartments and an
apartment hotel. The scheme also offers
positive gains to the public realm by
improving the existing public space on the
lower ground level.
The scheme is notable for its progressive
energy strategy. The low-energy services
are designed to cope with the extremes of
the local climate. The design of the Lilium
Tower also reflects the economic
importance of structure in relation to a
tower of this height. A central core forms
the backbone of the structure.

42. Whilst this arrangement is highly economical it offers uninterrupted views of
Warsaw in all directions. The composition of the Lilium Tower creates a
progressive and prestigious residential building for the 21st century. The
Lilium Tower comprises of an apartment hotel, residential apartments, spa
facilities, underground retail area with an adjacent exterior mall, restaurant,
and underground parking. On the ground floor, four separate lobbies enable
distinct access to the hotel, apartments, restaurant and delivery area.
Access and Approach
The various programmatic elements that make up the new Lilium Tower
require several access and exit points including, a car drop-off, a dedicated
pedestrian entrance to and from the underground car park and loading bay.
Vehicular Access
The underground car parks for the new Lilium Tower and the existing Marriott
Tower are separated and accessible via two detached ramps from
Nowogrodzka
Street. The new ramp serving the Lilium Tower car park is located just south
of the Marriott podium and in line with the existing Marriot car park ramp. At
Jerozolimskie Avenue there will be a drop-off area. The existing Marriott car
park ramp will also be utilized for accessing the loading bay area, which is
located on the lower ground level.
Pedestrian Access
The main access to the tower is on the ground floor level. The lobby is double
height with, the reception desk just to the right of the entrance. The scheme
proposes to separate entrances for the residential apartment and hotel
lobbies, as well as the restaurant and delivery area (emergency exit).

43. THE OPUS BUILDING ,DUBAI ….
On 22 May, 2007, Omniyat Properties and
Zaha Hadid Architects revealed the Opus, a
mixed-use commercial and retail development
located in the Business Bay district of Dubai.
The Opus is a fluid, spatial
building that refutes traditional
definitions of office functionality.
Constructed of three separate
towers the building will appear as a
singular unified whole, that hovers
from the ground, with a distinctive
free form void. The interiors of
which will be clad with a fully
engineered curved glass curtain
wall to allow for eye-catching views
into the void. Reflexive fritting
patterns in the form of pixilated
striations will be applied onto the
glass facade to provide a degree of
reflectivity and materiality to the
cube while assisting in the
reduction of solar gains inside the
building.

44. WON’T GET SURPRISED IF WE FIND SUCH
DECONSTRUCTIVISTIC FURNITURES AND SOME
SIMILAR ARRANGEMENTS…..

45. 2012 LONDON OLYMPICS -- AQUATICS CENTRE..
On 22 May, 2007, Omniyat Properties
and Zaha Hadid Architects revealed the Opus,
a mixed-use commercial and retail
development located in the Business Bay
district of Dubai.
The Zaha Hadid designed
Aquatics Centre is located in the south
of the Olympic Park and will be the
main ‘Gateway into the Games’, hosting
Swimming, Diving, Water polo finals
and the swimming discipline of the
Modern Pentathlon. The Aquatics
Centre will have a capacity of 17,500
during the Games, reducing to a
maximum of 2,500, with the ability to
add 1000 for major events in legacy,
and provide two 50m swimming pools
and a diving pool, facilities that London
does not have at present. The main
pedestrian access to the Olympic Park,
construction work will start by the
Beijing Games and be complete in 2010

46. A Balfour Beatty spokesperson said:
“Considerable thought was given to developing ODA Aquatics Centre Project
the materials for the internal ceiling of the venue Sponsor John Nicholson said:
during the early design stages and this work is
now benefiting further from the experience of “We are on track to deliver
Balfour Beatt. The experienced team has an Aquatics Centre that
engaged with the supply chain to develop the forms a fantastic ‘gateway to
conceptual design and utilize their expertise to the Games’ and in legacy
prepare construction information.” new community and elite
swimming and diving
facilities that London
currently lacks. The
innovative building structure
design is finalized and the
contractor is on site and
ready to start construction
ahead of schedule this
month. As is standard on any
project we are progressing
the detailed design
development which includes
considering a range of
materials for particular
elements, such as timber
cladding. Materials will be
thoroughly tested to ensure
they work for both the
Games and legacy.”

48. CAGLIARI CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTRE
CAGLIARI, ITALY.
The aim of the project was to create a node of cultural exchanges that
simultaneously will serve as a landmark announcing the arrival to Cagliari from
the sea, and answer the five challenges proposed by the brief.
Through the interconnection of the inner circulation with the public paths and
the alternation of open spaces and cavities, the building shares its public
dimension with the city. Moreover, it geometrically aligns along the axis of the
sea, and extends its arms towards the quarter and the stadium of S. Elia,
connecting and assimilating itself to the site.
At times it assimilates to
the ground, creating a new
landscape, while at others it
acquires a strong mass
defining the new skyline.

49. The open and dynamic quality of the shape is also pursued inside the building,
where the circulation of the visitors through the exhibition, information and
commercial paths determine the geometry of the spaces.
The erosion that forms a great cavity inside the building articulates the volume in
a succession of open spaces for exhibition, places of aggregation and occasions
for installation of contemporary art.
Such spaces, visible from a variety of viewpoints, satisfy the perceptive and the
aesthetic dialogue between the contemporary and the Neuralgic art. The inner cavity
allows the genesis of two continuous skins, one contained within the other. The
museum program is placed between the “external skin” of the facade system, and the
“inner skin”, equipped with a flexible serial system of anchorage and electrification,
that allows multiple uses of surfaces/ walls for installations or video projections.
The communication, contemporary and Neuralgic exhibitions, and the public paths
crossing the building and intercepting each other, create the fluid structure of the
building, allowing a variety of uses and configurations. The vertical and oblique
elements of circulation create zones of interference and turbulence creating a visual
continuity between the different parts of the building.

50. The vital metaphor governing the museum becomes clear
within the phasing plans: as with living organisms, the growth
of the museum will be self-regulated. It will happen naturally
when the conditions of a mature balance between the
economic atmosphere and philanthropic and cultural
environment are reached……

51. SHEIKH ZAYED BRIDGE ABU DHABI. . . .
There is a highly mobile society, which requires a new route around
the Gulf south shore, connecting the three Emirates together. In 1967 a
steel arch bridge was built to connect the fledgling city of Abu Dhabi
island to the mainland, followed by a second bridge built in the seventies,
connecting downstream at the south side of Abu Dhabi Island. The
location of the new Gateway Crossing, close to the first bridge, is critical
in the development and completion of the highway system. Conceived in
an open setting, the bridge has the prospect of becoming a destination in
itself and potential catalyst in the future urban growth of Abu Dhabi. A
collection, or strands of structures, gathered on one shore, are lifted and
'propelled' over the length of the channel. A sinusoidal waveform
provides the structural silhouette shape across the channel.

52. The mainland is the launch pad for the bridge structure
emerging from the ground and approach road. The Road decks
are cantilevered on each side of the spine structure. Steel
arches rise and spring from mass concrete piers asymmetrically,
in length, between the road decks to mark the mainland and
the navigation channels. The spine splits and splays from one
shore along the central void position, diverging under the road
decks to the outside of the roadways at the other end of the
bridge. The main bridge arch structure rises to a height of 60 m
above water level with the road crowning to a height of 20
meters above mean water level.

53. ANTWERP PORT AUTHORITY, BELGIUM. . .
With its unique design, its facade
architecture and its height of 46
meters, the new Port Authority will
be an iconic building, visible from
many different directions.
The concept is a free interpretation
of a beam-shaped volume raised
above the existing fire brigade
building and supported on three
sculptured concrete pillars housing
the stairs and lifts. Two of the pillars
are situated on the covered inner
courtyard of the firehouse, while the
third is located beside an external
support point and consists of a
panoramic lift shaft.
The open plan offices are indeed very
open, so that office staff will have a
great impression of space with a view
along the various outside walls. The
concept for the open plan office also
allows for small areas in which to hold
meetings, along with separate study
offices.

54. The outside walls are made up of glass
triangles, some transparent and some
reflecting. These do not all lie in the same
plane but are rotated slightly with respect
to one another, creating an attractive
reflecting play of incoming light in a
reference to Antwerp’s diamond industry.
The inner courtyard will be roofed over at
the height of the second story so as to
create an enclosed interior space. This
central entrance hall will be considered as
a semi-public space, with various enquiry
desks. A sculptural, sloping roof unites an
underground lobby with the covered inner
court. Access to the underground car park
is an important aspect of the overall
concept, with the loading & unloading
bays and the refuse handling facilities also
located here.
The design of the square can be arranged
so that daylight is allowed to enter. The
above-ground layout forms part of a
design project that is being carried out in
consultation with the city departments
responsible, with the main imperative
being to “preserve the visual quality of the
outside spaces in the Het Eilandje area.”

55. ZARAGOZA BRIDGE PAVILLION . . .
Zaha Hadid Architects’ proposal for the Bridge Pavilion is organized
around 4 main sections, or “pods” that perform both as structural
elements and as spatial enclosures. Floors inside them are located at the
Expo principal levels: +201.5 (the soffit of the bridge is at +200 m, flood
protection minimum level), +203 m and +206, +207.5 for the upper level.
The development of our design for the bridge pavilion stems from the
examination of the potential of a diamond-shaped section.

56. The diamond section works on several levels:
As employed in the case of space-frame structures, it
represents a rational way of distributing forces along a
surface. Underneath this floor plate, a resulting triangular
pocket space can be used to run utilities. The diamond
section has been continued along a slightly curved path,
and the extrusion of this rhombus section along different
paths generates four different “pods”.

57. Spatial concern is one of the main
aspects driving this project: each
zone within the building has its own
spatial identity, and their interiors
are focused on art-work or are open
spaces with strong visual connection
to the Ebro river and the Expo.
When designing the Pavilion’s skin, natural surfaces were a major
feature in our research. Shark scales are fascinating both for their
visual appearance and for their performance. Their pattern can easily
wrap around complex curvatures with a simple system of rectilinear
ridges. On a building scale, this proves to be effective, visually
appealing and economically convenient.

58. REGIUM WATERFRONT, CALABRIA.. . .
The project aims to define the city of Reggio Calabria as a
Mediterranean cultural capital through the realization of
two characteristic buildings: a museum and a
multifunctional building for performing arts.
The location of the site on the narrow sea strait separating
continental Italy from Sicily, offers an opportunity to create
two unique buildings visible from the sea and the Sicilian
coast: a Museum of the Mediterranean History and a
Multifunctional Building.

59. The form of the museum draws inspiration from the organic shapes of a
starfish. The radial symmetry of this shape helps to coordinate the
communication and circulation between different sections of the museum
and its other facilities. The Museum of Mediterranean History will house
exhibition spaces, restoration facilities, an archive, an aquarium and
library.
The Multifunctional Building is a composition of three separate elements
that surround a partially covered piazza. The building will house the
museum’s administrative offices, a gym, local craft laboratories, shops and
a cinema. Three different auditoriums, which can be converted into one
large space, are also housed in the Multifunctional Building.
The location of the site on the narrow sea strait separating continental Italy
from Sicily, offers an opportunity to create two unique buildings visible from
the sea and the Sicilian coast: a Museum of the Mediterranean History and a
Multifunctional Building.

60. The Multifunctional Building is a
composition of three separate
elements that surround a partially
covered piazza. The building will
house the museum’s administrative
offices, a gym, local craft
laboratories, shops and a cinema.
Three different auditoriums, which
can be converted into one large
space, are also housed there even.
“I am absolutely delighted to be
working in Reggio Calabria. The
project will be a gathering place for
people of all ages - presenting the
Mediterranean’s rich and diverse
history with visual and performing
arts to enhance the cultural vitality
of the city; providing an essential
venue for discussion and discourse
where the public engages with the
spaces and with the exhibitions. This
connection between culture and
public life is critical; as what
differentiates museums of the 21st
Century from the previous century
is that the client is no longer simply
one patron. The client is the public -
it’s many people, which makes this
project really exciting.” states Hadid.

61. PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE, ABU DHABI.
This unique design by Zaha Hadid, has some special importance as per
my study topic is concerned . . . So, here I am going to provide each and
every detail of this design and even the concepts behind it… So, I feel you
will love it…!!!

62. With the help of these views one can feel its hugeness and its
interconnection with the surrounding . . . some of them are
interiors which show how a complex space can be designed so
fabulously….

63. SOME OF THE SNAPS
OF SCALED MODEL
OF ABU DHABI ARTS
CENTRE WHICH ARE
SSHOWING HOW
KARIZMATICALLY, THE
DESIGN HAS BEEN
THOUGHT OF….

64. THE MODEL COMINF ALIVE WITH
ITS DETAILED GESTURES…
THIS IS HOW IT IS CLEAR THAT
DECONSTRUCTIVISM CAN ONLY
BE IMAGINED BY ITS 3-D FORM…

65. SOME OF THE CONCEPTUAL SHEETS SHOWING CONCEPT OF
ORGANIC MULTIPLICATION……….

66. Hadid’s performing arts centre concept, a 62 meter high building is
proposing to house five theatres – a music hall, concert hall, opera
house, drama theatre and a flexible theatre with a combined seating
capacity for 6,300. the centre may also house an academy of performing
arts. The Abu Dhabi performing arts centre will be one of five major
cultural institutions on the new 270-hectacre cultural district of Saadiyat
island in Abu Dhabi - developed by the Solomon r. Guggenheim
foundation on behalf of the tourism development and investment
company of Abu Dhabi.

67. SOME OF THE CONCEPTUAL SHEETS PRESENTED BY HADID’S OFFICE….

68. This is the phenomenal concept behind this project…. The organic
elements, the skeleton. The vegetation and many more… Enormously
assimilated at on place and produced the unbelievable Abu Dhabi Arts
centre which will for sure catch an eye of this design world….
With this explanation, I wanted to show off the Strength of futuristic
Deconstructivism style because Hadid made such a complex structure so
fabulously that even I sat upon the available data, it took 6 months to
come to this conclusion that Now, I can do something in the same
context..

69. This is not necessary that the Deconstructivism can only be applied in
the Building design context…. This has been proven by Hadid pretty
well.... Because where ever she designing a building, if asked to, She
even designs the furniture to be provided in her own context of fluidism!
Zaha Hadid’s architecture sees form and space pulled around, out of shape
and into breathtaking, fluid spatial progressions. Hugely theatrical and
enticingly urbane her buildings have begun to transform notions of what can
be achieved in concrete and steel, blending the revolutionary aesthetics of
constructivism with the liquid organicism of expressionism. The brief had
been a sculptural structure to revivify the 1921 building’s atrium. Zaha’s
proposal was an organic set of tentacles which linked spaces and floors
across the atrium, defying changing levels and criss-crossing each other in
mid-air. The effect was like a huge, sticky chewing gum pulled out of shape
across the interior. It is a sci-fi alien piece which transforms the heart of the
building, reaching across space. It looks as if the structure was attempting to
resolve itself back into a single solid.

70. The combination of carbon fiber technology with a morphology of organic
complexity allows us to achieve a super-thin, super-light, and super-robust
creatures. The large hovering plane seems to slice through the space like a wing.
The original idea for both the table and the desk is the generative principle of
developing the legs from the table surface through a cut and fold technique.
This technique leaves a hole in the table top surface which reveals the
generative move and allows the eye to trace the legs’ trajectory. The legs are
involuting from within the inner depth of the table surface, thus projecting
the table edge as a tapering cantilever….

71. Z-Scape is a compact ensemble of lounging furniture for public and private
living rooms. The formal concept is derived from dynamic landscape
formations like glaciers and erosions. The different pieces are constituted as
fragments determined by the overall mass and its diagonal veins. Along these
veins the block splits offering large splinters for further erosive sculpting.
The pieces thus derived are shaped further- if rather loosely - by typological,
functional and ergonomic considerations. Four pieces have emerged so far:
stalactite, stalagmite, glacier, and moraine.

72. The Z.CAR-II is a compact 4-wheeled 4-seater city-car that is based on its go
3-wheeled predecessor, the Z.CAR. It is an emission-free vehicle that is
powered by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. To save space and increase
performance the car is fitted with 4 electric in-wheel motors that make it
very quiet. The large sliding passenger doors give easy access. The compact
design is taking advantage a high degree of weight and space distribution for
all the mechanical and electrical components.
The inclination of the passenger pod is speed adjusted. At low speeds it is in
the upper position and gives the driver a better street vision. A shortened
wheelbase then also requires less parking-space.

73. The drawing is a lens that reveals otherwise imperceptible
aspects; it's a method for understanding how things can change
and evolve and serve, not for crystallizing a form in a definitive
way but to demonstrate the possibilities of what it can become.
—Zaha Hadid

74. BETWEEN THE LINES......
The Research......

75. Instead of coming to a concluding stage, I will be happy to produce
another Theoretical Research of the Living Legend monument which is
called as The Jewish Museum designed by DANIEL LIBESKIND……
This monument has got a great background, a phenomenal emotion and
even Architect’s own style of story telling…… The museum is situated in
Berlin, which is actually an extension of existing old one.
The Jewish Museum Berlin was
originally founded on
Oranienburger Strabe in 1933. It
was closed in 1938 by the Nazi
regime. The idea to revive the
museum was first voiced in 1971,
and an “Association for a Jewish
Museum” was founded in 1975……

76. Post memory and the Jewish Museum, Berlin.
The Jewish Museum, Berlins is a unique project architecturally,
museologically and particularly in reference to the discourse on collective
memory. Ever since its architect Daniel Libeskind won the competition for the
museum building in 1989,the museum’s deconstructivist design has been
subjected to a lot of discussion in the form of curious inspection, speculation,
analysis, criticism and but not least ;a lot of acclaim. The building has been
hailed as the “last architectural masterpiece in the twentieth-century Berlin
and its foremost building for the twenty first. “
The architect who was hitherto lesser known and noted only for
his poetic, theoretical or philosophical approach has come to be recognized as
a successful, preeminent practitioner after this project was completed. While
the project was being marveled at architecturally, it also alerted the
museological field to the extent to which the architecture of a museum can
have an impact on the achievement of the mission and purpose of museums.
The museum community voiced concerns over the limitations that the difficult
architecture of the building would impose on the nature of exhibitions and
their mounting in the building. However, when the museum finally opened
with its exhibits in place, some synergy between the architecture of the
museum and its exhibitions had been achieved.”
The museum's architecture continues to dominate the discourse
on collective memory. It is held remarkable that in his approach to designing
the building, Libeskind chose to shroud the links between the past and the
present in subterranean parts of his building, and instead chose the most
complex part of historical discourse by articulating and exposing in his spatial
scheme the void of wiped out Jewish memory from the history of Berlin.

77. In making visible the void, he offers a tribute to the past in which
unparallel amalgamation was achieved, while also lays bare, in the very same
void, the trouble collective memory of the Jewish population that survived the
Holocaust. In doing so the museum takes on the role of commemorative
agency, a role hitherto assigned exclusively to memories. Thus, together the
architecture, museological and discursive aspects of the museum - its
uniqueness as a museum building, its exemplary role in continuing the
architecture - exhibition dialectic and triumph in empathically evoking a
collective and commemorative cause - are the three salient and widely known
aspects of this museum project.
However, these are not the only reasons why the museum building is
significant to the current discussion. A hitherto less probed - personal aspect
shall be pivoted to our discussion in keeping with the theme of postmemory. In
this discussion, I would focus on how the so called 'jagged’ familial history of
the architect comes into play in his radical design for his first ever
commissioned work. I will briefly review an important step of Libeskind's
design artistic process, and compare it with the artistic production of Mans, to
understand the core similarities that connect both these commemorative
exercises.
But, in order to do this, we must understand the socio-cultural history
of Berlin and the context that led to the formulation of this institution and its
new premises. This discussion would also useful in providing a pretext for
Libeskind’s design.
The association of the Jewish population with the city of Berlin dates
back to the thirteen century. However, out of the seven centuries of
association, the fragment of larger history that is particularly relevant to the
history of this institution and to Libeskind's design start approximately in the
last quarter of the seventeenth century….

78. It was only in 1714 , that the first synagogue, that later came to be
known as the Old Synagogue was established. By the middle of the eighteenth
century the Jewish population in Berlin totaled around two thousand people
his period was followed by a period of self reflection and in introspection,
leading to many Reforms in the orthodox Judaic traditions. This period is also
known as Haskalah or the Jewish Renaissance. The idea of Jewish renaissance
is attributed to philosopher and scholar Mosses Mendelssohn, who arrived in
Berlin in 1743 and advocated Jewish equality and secularism. He stood to
establish Judaism as a non-dogmatic, rational faith, open to modernity and
change. He called for secular education and propagated the message for
tolerance and humanity amongst Christianity and Judaism. In this period, the
internal communal authority was undermined in favor of liberal thinking. For
those who followed this progressive thought, it allowed them to abandon their
exclusiveness and to acquire the knowledge, manners, and aspirations of the
nations amongst whom they dwelt.
In the late eighteenth century, Europe was swept by a group of
intellectual, social and optical movements collectively known as the
Enlightenment. During this period, not only Berlin but also the rest of the
country experienced something of a highpoint of religious tolerance promoted
reformative thoughts that extolled the virtues of secular education, social
equality, and the universal rights of man. One of the reformative effects of the
enlightenment was that it leads to reduction in the prohibitory laws against
Jews. Together, the internal reforms as sought by the Haskalah and the legal
emancipation brought about by the Enlightenment led to gradual mingling of
tradition and culture or acculturation. The process of acculturation summarizes
Joachim Whaley, started with the systematic adoption of the German language
and of German culture. “However, the progress of these changes was neither
uniform nor unchallenged from within as well as from outside.

79. The early reformers were soon confronted by conservation and by
the neo Orthodox movement, just as they received resistance from the elite.
Even then, the transformation and gradual assimilation continued, so much so
that the contribution that individual Jews made to German culture “symbolized
the emergence of the German Jews. The Weimar years alter the first World
art. proved to be a period consolidation for the Berlin's German Jewry
Amongst those German Jews who rose to eminence were playwright Max
Reinhart. Composers Arnold Schoenberg and Kurt Well. Artists Max
Liebermann and Lesser Uri, and popular writers such as Vicki Baum. The
population grew as well.
At the same time, however, anti-Semitism was on the rise and in
the years leading up Nazis ascendance to power in 1933. discrimination and
prosecution against Jews increase. As if by a stroke of irony, the first ever
Jewish Museum opened in Berlin one week before Adolph Hitler was sworn in
as the chancellor of Germany. Although this museum is institutionally
unrelated to the present museum, it sets a precedent to the discussion on
Libeskind museum building, while also exemplifying the epitome of German
Jewish cultural amalgam.
The museum opened with an art exhibition of the works of the
German Jewish artist Liebermann who had founded the group Berlin
secessionists. Amidst critical and political opposition, the museum went on to
mount several more. Exhibitions of German Jewish artist and their milieu.
However, when the Nuremberg laws. Strictly enforced a discrimination against
Jews on racial ground, the Nazis forbade all but Jews to visit the museum and
all but Jewish artist to exhibit there, thus causing a rift in the German Jewish
cultural bonding that had been formulated in the previous two centuries.

80. It would not be until thirty-three years later i.e. in 1971- the year
that marked three hundred years of Jewish presence in Berlin - that a museum
exhibition focusing on Jewish theme would open again in the city, as if to
eloquently revive an older tradition. The exhibition was the first step towards
realizing the idea and need for institutionalizing the Jewish history and
memory in the city. The proponent of these ideas was the head of the Jewish
community of West Berlin -Heinz Galinski. In the aspirations Galinski outlined
for institutionalizing the representation of Jewish history in Berlin, it was
stressed that such a representation must approach the history the Jewish
population in harmony with the history of the city, and carefully avoid a
seceded ghetto' like - representation "at the higher level of a cultural
institution.” Though the following three decades - the seventies, eighties and
nineties - steady efforts were made realize the dream of representing the
distinct yet integrated heritage of the Jewish population o the city of Berlin.
Such efforts are inextricably linked with the efforts of the western
part of the divided city to first have access to its local history museum. The
building of the Berlin wall in 1961 had made former local history museum, the
Mariachis Museum reaction of the building of the wall and to compensate for
the loss of a shared institutions, the Berlin Museum was founded m 1962,
specifically for the population of west Berlin .Subsequent to its formation and
following Galinski plea for representation of Jewish history for what was to
become an autonomous Jewish department within the museum. In 1971,these
efforts culminated in the first exhibition devoted to the Jewish late in Berlin, a
show tilled: contribution and fate 3 00 years of the Jewish community, 1671-
1971. Following the success of this exhibition, in 1975 the Berlin Senate
approved the establishment of a Jewish department within the Berlin
Museum. The establishment of this department fulfilled Galinski idea of
seeking representation for the history of the Jewish community of Berlin as an
integrated strand of the broader cultural history of the city.

81. The department gradually grew in size and scope of collections, and
a need was felt to enlarge its premises. In 1988, the senate agreed to approve
the financing for building the premises of a Jewish department that would
administratively fall under the supervision of the Berlin Museum but that
would have spatial and programmatic autonomy. A competition was launched
in 1988 for a building design that would help spatially extend the legacy of the
Berlin Museum into the Jewish department, yet allow the department its own
space character and identity. In keeping with the dual intentions, the project
was called -Berlin Museum with the Jewish Museum Department. (In our
discussion, we refer to the Museum Department as Jewish Museum).
The new expansion was to consist of three parts one displaying the
general history of Berlin from 1870 to the present, one representing the
history of Jews in Berlin, and in between space dedicated to the theme of Jews
in the society that would articulate the relation and crossovers between the
two other components .In 1989, just a few month before the Berlin wall came
down. Daniel Libeskind was declared as the surprise winner of this
competition.
And in September 2001, the Jewish Museum as designed by
Libeskind, open with a permanent exhibition in place. Daniel Libeskind's design
for the building draws from the three centuries of shared culture that Berlin
witnessed. It recognized the culture amalgam that occurred in this city as
unique and unparalleled. However it also emphasizes that the force of the
sudden extermination of the .Jewish population created a gaping hole in the
centuries old fabric of an interwoven history of Germans and Jews. The
building thus attempts to straddle the duality characterized by intertwined
histories, and at the same time it lays bare the void created when the adhesive
ruptured, and the histories became disengaged.

82. In Libeskind's building, the void does not exist only as a conceptual
entity a means to an end; it is the end in itself. The void manifests itself in the
building as a physical entity, making its presence felt in different intensities at
different places in the museum. Appearing sometimes as fractures in the
linearity of the building, and sometimes as virtually inaccessible and sealed
spaces, the void is an intrinsic and inevitable part of the museum visitor's
experience. In the words of the Holocaust scholar James Young, the former
treatment of the void, "raft to the arsenics left behind by a murdered people,
an absence that must be marked and that shapes (however negatively) the
culture aim society that brought it about. The latter manifestation of the void
in the building - the sealed empty spaces, as akin to some deeply situated
memory of the past, which “gives shapes to and meaning to the surrounding
present but remain hidden in and of it.
In relation to the discourse on postmemory, it is a similar kind of
deeply personal memory of the museum‘s architects - Daniel Libeskind that I
am interested to explore within the depth of his design of this building. This
familial association of architects with Jewish history, in particular with the
Holocaust, is no secret; eighty five immediate relatives of Libeskind’s parents
were killed in Auschwitz, prior to his birth. However, the question is that
hitherto less explored is, do Libeskind association with this post get manifested
into his work, particularly the Jewish museum?
Assuming that Libeskind's associations with the past quality as
postmemory ,let’s began to seek the interplay of this postmemory, first in the
void of this museum, followed by some discussion on one of his conceptual
drawings, which could help us approach his psyche as a member of the post-
survivor generation. What gets revealed in the process would perhaps also
help validate that Libeskind’s associations with familial and collective past are
indeed akin to postmemory.

83. Museum's architecture - The Void :-
The idea of void is central to Libeskind's very understanding and
definition of the project itself Instead of adopting the awkwardly long name of
the project - Extension of Berlin Museum with the Jewish Museum
Department - the architect chooses to describe the project by a simple and
common phrase 'between the lines’. There is a dual meaning signified by this
phrase. First, it has a literal connotation; for when we use phrase in relation to
reading literary texts, we imply that by reading between the lines we are able
to look through the form and structure of a text for obscured meanings or
unexpressed allusions. Second, the phrase is descriptive of the conceptual
design that Libeskind devised for the buildings .In simple term, in the form and
layout of the building can be describe as a confluence of two kinds of lines: one
is straight but broken into many fragment and the other is tortuous line
continuing infinitely. The lines are intertwined as if engaged in specific but
limited dialogue. In carrying out this dialogue the lines also fall apart, become
disengaged and are seen as separated. In this way, they exposed a void which
runs through the museum- a discontinuous void.
The lines of Libeskind conceptual design can be interpreted as a
symbolic of two modes [or lines]of “thinking ,or organization or relationship.”
Or they can be interpreted as a symbolic coming together of two strands of
history- the Jewish history intersected by changing flux of attitudes of these
societies in which Jews dwelt and mingled. Whatever the interpretation be,
the duality marked by the phrase 'between the lines” urges us to look through
the formal structure of the relationship between the parallel histories as well
through the formal characteristics of the building's architecture into the
vacuum that resides in between. This vacuum, void, or absence is the focal
point of the entire exercise. For. it is this void that makes the extermination of
Jews from the city of Berlin, palpable in the building.

84. At the same time it is this very void that also serves as the structural
spine of the building preventing the continuum of the building's zigzag form
from falling apart.
Further, it is the void that forms the only link between the Baroque
buildings of the Museum with the new building of the Jewish Museum. There
is no entrance to the Museum from its own building or premises; the only
entrance to the museum is through Berlin Museum. This makes it mandatory
for any visitors to symbolically first acknowledges and encounter the history
of the city by seeking entrance into the Berlin Museum in order to approach
and comprehend the Jewish history. The connection between the buildings is
not visible above the surface of ground; it is embedded with the ground level
as a network of subterranean passageway. huge stairwell located in the
Berlin museum marks the entrance of this passageway. The void of the
stairwell stretches into the long empty passage way leading into a Libeskind
building. It is this voids deeply embedded under a two museum building,
which severs to symbolically reinforce a connection between one
institutionalized strand of history and the other. In Libeskind’s words:
There is no door for you, because there is no way into Jewish history
and into Berlin‘s history by the traditional door: You have to follow a much
more complex route to understand Jewish history in Berlin, and to
understand the future of Berlin .You have to go back into the depth of Berlin’s
history, into it’s Baroque period, and therefore into the baroque building
first.

85. The void reappears in five separate fragments along the length of
the exhibition space the Jewish museum. Sometimes stretching
uninterrupted from the level of the underground passage way to the roof of
the building, these fragments are volumetrically expansive. (Image 10)
Together these fragments constitute the 'straight but fragmented line'
described in Libeskind's concept. Intersecting and intercepting the
continuous, contorted and collinear exhibition spaces, which represent the
other line from Libeskind", the fragments translate into becoming the
sanctimonious central (but empty) spaces for the museum. So as to maintain
the purity of symbolic purpose empty spaces, the architect has even
prescribed that no exhibits would be mounted on the wall: surrounding the
fragmented void.
The visitors to the museum encounter this fragmented void
through their unfinished raw walls of concrete that slice through the
exhibition spaces. (Image 10) The fragments are kept for most parts as, as if
not allow the viewer to sense their physical extent; for in order to
comprehend them, they be entered into. However, for most parts, these
fragments make their presence felt as solid, material of the wall, only
occasionally allowing a view into what lies within. One of the ways to
experience the void is form selected opening on the ground floor, where one
can almost feel the pressure of the voluminous vacuum overhead or by
trading on a few bridges running across at certain levels when quite literally
one is actually standing over the void. The void is kepi without insulation,
heating or air conditioning for them to be experienced as blatantly as
possible. By investing the void with such strong experience. Libeskind has
invested it with meaning' and significance.

86. The void is frequently interpreted as a significance of collective
trauma silent, confined but unmistakably present. Such an interpretation
recalls Alpheus's definition of trauma. Alphen had connotatively equated
trauma with a void- one that results from nonoccurrence or failure of
discursive experience.XNI In reference to this definition, it seems that
Libeskind has actualized Alphen idea of the void. Whether in the form of
ruptures in the continuous stream of history assembled in museum's linear
spaces, or as stacks of sealed-off inaccessible spaces, the void stands to
signify the sudden breaks in the narrative of memory caused by trauma.
Expanding this interpretation into the realm of postmemory, the
void could also be perceived the signifier of several unspoken/ unspeakable
familial experiences, which postmemory generations (like Spiegel man’s,
Silva's, Libeskind's and mine) have begun to express publically either in
academic discourse, or through artistic practices, or as performative rituals
story is of Libeskind's family that he recounts in his autobiography perhaps
for the first time.
Libeskind was born to Nachman and Dora, young Jewish activities
from Poland – Nachman from Lodz and Dora from Warsaw. They field their
respective cities for the Soviet Union in 1939 when the Nazi invaded Poland,
while their respective families – parents, sibling, nephews, nieces-for some
reason for the other, chose to stay in Poland. As noted earlier, eighty five of
these immediately family members were reported murdered in Auschwitz
when Nachman and Dora got a chance to return to Poland after many years.

87. During their years in the Soviet Union, Libeskind's parents were
captured by the Red-army and transported to gulag or penal-labor camps of
the Soviet Union. Although, this way. They escaped the hardships of the
Nazi labor concentration camps, life was not easy for them .Nachman and
Dora were put into separate camps, where the only way to survive was to
toil. In the words of L libeskind:
"It was a brutal life. Subsisting on nothing but watery soup, bits of
stale bread, and black water they called coffee, and dressed in cotton
clothing and rubber shoes Nachman and the other inmates walked for hours
through snow to a work site, guarded by dogs and soldiers, they dug tunnels,
built bridges, and crushed rocks, all for the 'war effort'.”
In camp near Novosibirsk Dora was put to work making leather
boots and elaborately detailed shirts of the finest silk for the Soviet general
staff. She herself wore only rags, and wrapped her feel in newspaper lo ward
off frostbite. The women in the camp were routinely abused by the
guards...and what injury the guards didn’t inflict, they did.
The camp inmates were set there in 1942. With the Second
World War having erupted, it would have been fatal to enter Poland again. So
some inmates tied southwards, to a soviet state called, Kyrgyzstan. Nachman
and Dora met at a refugee center in Kyrgyzstan the same y ear and married.
Anya, their first child was born in 1944 amidst a famine that swept through
the region. Two year later Libeskind was born in a refugee hospital in Lodz
when the family was able to move into Poland only to discover that their
kith and kin had met the same fate as million of other Jews- exterminated in
gas chamber.”

88. In the context of such an account of familial history the void in
Libeskind architectural organization for the Jewish Museum takes on highly
personal (and familial) meaning. The suddenly begin to suddenly begin to
signify the material, familial and social void in the lives of survivors, such as
his parents, as they prepared to start their again after encountering
irrecoverable losses in the Holocausts. If the building can be regarded as
Libeskind’s text conglomeration of signs then there is indeed a personal
(familial) presence in the void of the Jewish Museum, which stands to
represent the traumas of the community of which his family was, is also a
part. Libeskind is aware of such gruesome episodes of familial history
through the stories he has come to learn from his family. The stories have
informed his consciousness and sense of being, which in turn informs his
work. "We are our parent '.s children someone who was born in the post-
Holocaust world to parents who were both Holocaust survivors. I bring that
history-to bear on my work."‘
Libeskind's architecture of the Jewish Museum is informed by
personal history as well as an understanding of history ('after world
catastrophes') culminating in the tragic void. "Because of who I am, I have
thought a lot about matters like trauma and memory: awareness and
sensitivity precipitates as others' memory into his work. He favors an agenda
that seeks "a profound indication of memory" in place of work that is "glossy,
contemporary ironic. Self satisfied. He expresses his mandate as follows:
“Painters have their color, musician their sound, writers their words ...The
tool of architects [Stone, steel, concrete, glass, wood] are less easy to
assemble. The challenge before me is to design expensive building – building
that tell human stories with this mute substance.”

89. He approached the Jewish Museum as a meaning making exercise
as well as an opportunity to examine the very purpose of meaning making .In
an instance he has tried to emphasize his point about meaning making by
asking –“Is it to erase the memory of what has happened ? Is it to show that
everything is fine? That everything will be just as before?”Such question led
him to for sake the trodden path, and seek a language of profundity, which
he assembles through his manifestation of an architectural void. The void
become his primary device to express the “the presence of overwhelming
emptiness created when a community is wiped out , or individual freedom is
stamped out :when the continuity of life is so brutally disrupted that the
structure of life is forever torque and transformed.
An indelible association with his parents past, coupled with the
temporal and geographical distance that has allowed him the stability of a
peaceful life, and opportunities to acquire and establish the intellect of a
philosopher, the skill of an architect and the fluidity of a musician, are
respectively responsible for invoking in him the urge as well as the capability
to seek a profound representation for the pathos of the Jewish population in
the void of the Jewish museum. No surprise then, that his design outshone
other 164 entries in the competition of 1988 by refusing to contain itself in a
"neutral box. Soothing and attractive, where one could visit remains of a
once .flourishing culture after viewing other exhibits in the big Baroque
building. Instead it chose to reside in a radical scheme, which denies
recognizing the history of the Jewish community, whether in Berlin or
elsewhere, as neutral. Libeskind's designs leave open the gash in the history,
which other competitors had proposed to be flattened for future histories to
flourish over it.

90. No wonder also that due to its universal approach and appeal, the
project that was that mean to house only a departmental extension of an
established city museum {i.e. Berlin Museum} was granted the status of an
autonomous museum. I n 1998 , as the construction of Libeskind building
was nearing completion , the model of conceptual and institutional
integration of the Jewish Museum with the city Museum was abandoned ;
the Jewish Museum was given autonomy as an independent institution ,
along the Berlin museum .Instead of focusing on the role of Jewish history in
Berlin alone , the conception of museum was expanded to include the
national , European and global dimension , and the entire , now
independent annex was made available to the Jewish Museum.
What draws me to include the Jewish Museum into the discussion
on postmemory in addition to the self-acknowledged presence of a familial
story at the core of his motivation for this building? Are a few marked
similarities that Libeskind's process bears with Art Spiegel men? To illustrate
this, I would like to bring into discussion the conceptual diagram that
Libeskind prepared at the beginning of the design exercise for the Jewish
Museum.

91. Design process - The Star Diagram:
'When I started thinking about what to design, I 'd brought a map of
Berlin.... Next I'd written the West German government, asking for copies of
the gedenkbuch or Memorial Book. Writes Libeskind, describing how he
initiated the work on this project. Libeskind felt necessary to first map out a
mental model of the city of I the map of Berlin, he began by plotting the
names and addresses of famous German Jewish scholars, artists,
philosophers, musicians and other well known personalities, who were
affected by the Holocaust .These name and addresses were extracted from
Gedenkbuch which list the name of all German Jews murdered in the
Holocaust .The entries in the book records their date of birth , home cities ,
presumed dates of death and the ghettoes and concentration camps in
which the victims perished.
On the layer created by the superimposition of the map with the
names and addressed of German Jews, Libeskind then inscribe a referential
grid by connections lines between pairs of randomly spotted names and
corresponding addresses. One such referential grid drive out of pairing some
of its favorite personalities from among the most illustrious German Jews –
Mies Van der Rohe and E.T.A. Hoffmann,Paul Klee and Friedrich von Kleist,
Rahel Levin Varnhagen and Friedrich Schleiermacher resulted in the
formation of a skewed Star of David over the map of Berlin .Although
,Libeskind refrains from distributing the six letters of the word B-E-R-L-I-N in
the diagram, he suggested that they could be used to denote each vertex of
the six pointed star.

92. The diagram represents the sketch resulting from the three step
process that Libeskind thus followed. The exercise may itself not be
important for the design of the building, but it acts as the stepping stone for
allowing personal associations with the site, the city of Berlin, and Jewish
history. The diagram is a palimpsest of' document' and 'imagination" - where
the names addresses and the map serve as factual document, but the
referential grid is a derivatives Libeskind's 'cultural' imagination i.e. his
associations with the cultural history of the city.
The diagram is reminiscent of the family-sketch that Art Spiegel man
had created for the first Maus of 1971. The commonality of the artistic
processes for both these exercises lies in the use of documentary images
combined with imaginative investment. For Spiegel man the base layer his
family sketch consisted of a journalistic photo that record the faces of the
survivors of the Buchenwald camp .For Libeskind the base layer is the official
gazette of the victims of the Holocaust.
Imaginative investment is visible in the next step when the base
layer is superimposed with associative and hand drawing. Libeskind sketches
a grid in the form of stars, with the virtual image of the letters of the word
Berlin at each corner of the star formation which is akin to the letters of the
word 'Poppa' Thai Spiegel man inscribes in his family-sketch. It is no
coincidence for Spiegel man that the arrow before the word "poppa" points
towards a specific man in the image. Similarly it is no coincidence for I
Libeskind that the site of the Berlin Museum falls on one of the corners of his
referential Star of David grid. The positioning of the site on the referential
grid of the Star of David is a sign of Libeskind's identification with the project
as well as his realization that through this project he stands to represent the
Jewish community and its history.

93. Family and community become the shared resources of the artistic
exercises of each of these two artists. The members of familiar association
that ignited an artistic process for Spiegleman can be seen here as sparks of
‘collective' association resulting in the 'blitz"" of Libeskind’s building. Though
differently trained, both unhesitatingly voice this association in their
respective works. Spiegleman voices it through his so called image-text.
Extending the analogy of the phrase, one could say that Libeskind manifests
his associations through the void of his spatial-text. This comparison
underscores that in the same way as the family-sketch revealed Art
spiegelmen urge to visualize his father's past in the concentration camp via
his sketch.
Libeskind’s diagram expresses his urge to visualize his collective
past , which exists in the form of the presence of the rich German – Jewish
cultural amalgam in the city of Berlin years before, but of which very few
traces were left visible in the city .the comparison also helps evince that the
Jewish Museum building is unique not just architecturally ,muse logically and
from the prospective of the collective memory .Instead , it is unique because
in its artistic production lies culmination a commemorative exercise.
The museum building can therefore he regarded as an extension
of an individual, his family and Community’s collective past. All three forces
come into play within the void inscribed within the museum, philosophical!),
conceptually and architecturally. An institution is sometimes referred to as
the elongated shadow' of the vision armies who set it up. If that is indeed
true, then at the very least the building of the Jewish Museum. Berlin is an
extension of its architect, reflected in all the personal as well as collective
associations that have informed its very unique architecture.

94. The museum draws its profundity from the fact that Libeskind is
closely and personally connected with a family of survivors. However, where
he is not as closely connected as in the case of the cultural history of Berlin,
he begins to draw a personal association by investing into 'document +
imagination' exercise, as represented by the conceptual diagram. Although,
at the time when he initiated the design of the museum, the term
postmemory had not been proposed (as also in the case of Spiegleman) yet
at best the void of his building, as well as the associative narrative
formulated in the conceptual diagram can be described as postmemory
commemoration exercises- where deep empathy for familial and collective
past exists in spite of a temporal distancing. The empathy helps invigorate
the design with profoundly, while the temporal distancing facilitates a unique
interpretation of history, which denounces complacency in favor of a bold
and radical encounter characterized by the product as well as its process .It
this boldness that made Libeskind‘s proposal strand out amongst the other in
the competition.
In accepting the personally and associatively informed bold design
for a museum building, it seems that the Jewish Museum, Berlin has set a
precedent for giving space to personal narratives in Museum architecture .It
could be therefore be concluded that postmemory has, at the very least,
found its way to the door of the Museum building .However, it’s now
important to see if it has any acceptance beyond the threshold i.e. in the
activities or programs of museum. The following case study would help us
examine the extent of relevance and acceptance of postmemory in the
museum programs.

95. THE STAR DIAGRAM.
The site is the new-old center of Berlin on Linder Strasse Libeskind
at the same time felt there was an invisible matrix of connections
between the figures of Jews and Germans. Libeskind plotted an
“irrational matrix” which resembled a distorted star: the yellow star that
was worn often on this very site. Libeskind inspired by the ‘Gedenbuch’
which contains all the names, dates of births, and places/dates of
depuration and/or deaths. Incorporated Walter Benjamin’s text ‘One
Way Street’ into the continuous sequence of 60 sections along the
zigzag, each representing of the ‘Stations of the Star’…… The Voids
represent the central structural element of the New Building. From the
Old Building, a staircase leads down to the basement through a Void of
bare concrete which joins the two buildings . . . . .

96. The Jewish Museum marks a special point on the map of Berlin. Its located at
the intersection of Markgrafenstrasse and Lindenstrasse lies on the edge of
Friedrichstadt. The area exhibits a compelling key of historical
buildings and architectural styles consisting of Karl Schinkel’s Schauspielhaus,
or Theater, Carl von Gontard’s two tower structures and Jewish Museum.
GROUND FLOOR
“The Jewish Museum is conceived as an emblem in
which the Invisible and the Visible are the
structural features which have been gathered in
this space of Berlin and laid bare in an architecture
where the unnamed remains the name which
keeps still. The aim of the project was a critical
reconstruction of the historical city plan, using
contemporary architectural means”
--Daniel Libeskind

97. THE VOIDS REPRESENT THE CENTRAL STRUCTURAL ELEMENT OF THE NEW
BUILDING FROM THE OLD BUILDING….
 A STAIRCASE LEADS DOWN TO THE BASEMENT THROUGH A VOID OF BARE
CONCRETE WHICH JOINS THE TWO BUILDINGS. FIVE VOIDS RUN VERTICALLY
THROUGH THE NEW BUILDING….
• WALLS OF BARE CONCRETE: NOT HEATED OR AIR CONDITIONED AND ARE LARGELY
WITHOUT ARTIFICIAL LIGHT….
• THE AXIS OF THE HOLOCAUST LEADS THROUGH A HEAVY BLACK STEEL DOOR
INTO THE HOLOCAUST TOWER. IT IS A VOID OUTSIDE THE MUSEUM BUILDING….
•IT IS A BARE CONCRETE TOWER 24 METERS HIGH AND IT IS LIT BY A SINGLE
NARROW SLIT HIGH ABOVE THE GROUND….

98. SOME OF THE IMPORTANT DETAILS AND
VIEW WHICH WILL SURELY ENERGISE THE
IMMORTAL FEEL OF THESE MUSEUM……

99. The structure of this building goes far beyond
the physical realm. It addresses the social
structure of Berlin and the absence of Jews in
Berlin. Libeskind creates a dialogue between the
past and the present of the Holocaust, and
Most importantly, Libeskind poses the question,
how do we deal with the scars from the past?

100. THIS IS HOW DECONSTRUCTIVISM IS !! THIS RESEARCH WAS STARTED
WITH THE AIM OF COMPLETING 35 PAGES AS PER REQUIREMENT OF FINAL
SUBMISSION….! BUT, AS DECONSTRUCTIVISM STRETCHED ITS ARMS, THE
SUBMISSION TURNED INTO A BOOK….!
THIS ARCHITECTURAL STYLE, EMERGED WITH MANY LEGENDARY
ARCHITECTS LIKE THE GODFATHER PHILOSOPHER JAQUES DERRIDA, DANIEL
LIBESKIND, ZAHA HADID, FRANK O. GEHRY AND MANY MORE….
BUT, ONE SIMILAR CHARACTER AMONG THESE CREATORS WAS, THEIR
THIRST TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT AND IMMORTAL. THEY HAVE, AS WE
HAVE SEEN, CREATED SUCH BRILLIANT MASTERPIECES THAT THEY WOULD
STAND AS MYSTERY FOR THE FORTHCOMING DESIGNERS…..
“DESIGN IS THAT AREA OF HUMAN
EXPERIENCE, SKILL AND KNOWLEDGE
WHICH IS CONCERNED WITH MAN’S
ABILITY TO MOULD HIS ENVIRONMENT
TO SUIT HIS MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL
NEEDS.”
--- MUKUND D. MUNDHADA.
FINAL YEAR, B. ARCH., SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, AKOLA.