Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #171321 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
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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Customer Reviews

Only an idiot can be brilliant at breakfast
Libeskind proves in this personal account of his life that living dangerously has his rewards. He describes his endless struggles with authorities, bureaucrats in Berlin, New York and so on. He tells marvellous tales of taking a stand in architecture, how architecture and good design can add value to a city. But his life in architecture is an adventurous one. He won the commission for the Jewish Museum in Berlin just by good luck and an ambitious wife. Libeskind received too late the invitation to take part in the architectural competition. His wife succeeded by sheer thougness in nominating him for the contest and eventually he won. His struggle for the World Trade Center commission is a tough one. Larry Silverstein is his main opponent. Libeskind can never be confident about the outcome of this fight. Why insist on theoretical books on architecture when such personal accounts are available? Libeskind pleads for architecture with heart and soul. I liked this book tremendously and would like to recommend the book to every student of architecture. Just to learn that architecture is about winning competitions as much as about designing. Libeskind cites Einstein: Only an idiot can be brilliant at breakfast. Libeskind could have written this beautiful book during breakfast.

Luuk Oost