205present. This suggests that the building is subordinate to the old Berlin Museum, a
suggestion that is straightaway contradicted once one gets the chance to size up the
full scope of the new extension. Between the old building and the zigzag shape of
the new one, a narrow alley leading to a courtyard, the Paul Celan Hof, is created that
fits in with the Berlin tradition of Gassenand Hinterhöfer(figure 91). More toward the
rear of the building, the high broad volumes forming the last sections of the zigzag
are arranged as spatially defining elements for the public gardens situated on both
sides of the entire complex. The volumes have an effect that fits in excellently with
the rich contrast of architectures in the neighborhood.^115
According to Libeskind, the design has four basic underlying themes. The first
of these came to him when he noted on old maps of the city the addresses of some
famous representatives of a rejected culture: Walter Benjamin, Paul Celan, Mies van
der Rohe, and others. The network that was created—an invisible matrix of relations
printed on the surface of Berlin—took the form of a Star of David (figure 92). A sec-
ond theme had to do with the music of Arnold Schoenberg and especially his unfin-
ished opera Moses und Aaron. The opera deals with the difficult relation between the
unimaginable truth that was revealed to Moses and the way that Aaron converted
this absolute truth into images that could easily be assimilated. The third theme is
the Gedenkbuchwith the names of the Jews who were deported from Berlin. In its
naked materiality, the two volumes of this book, which is as thick as a telephone
book, form an extremely compelling testimony to the real impact of the Holocaust—204
91Daniel Libeskind, extension of
the Berlin Museum with the
Jewish Museum, Paul Celan Hof.
(Photo: Bitter Bredt.)