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CALEV BEN-DAVID:
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The man at Ground Zero

This September 11 The New York Times duly editorialized on such weighty topics as the war on terror, the conflict in Iraq and the meaning of patriotism.

It also devoted a separate editorial to the rebuilding of lower Manhattan that declared: "As the debate over the future of the World Trade Center site continues, those charged with rebuilding must work to preserve Daniel Libeskind’s design and the public’s stake in the process."

That, on the second anniversary of 9/11, what is essentially a debate over a proposed work of architecture should be given equal editorial standing with the war on terror in the world’s most important newspaper, is just one indication of how important and contentious an issue the reconstruction of Ground Zero has become.

It is also an illustration of how that process has become embodied in the person of one man, and galvanized by his vision. That this man should be a creative artist whose personal biography is practically a touchstone itinerary of modern Jewish life, whose well of inspiration draws deeply on Jewish themes and whose work has addressed the most profound dilemmas of Jewish existence, makes his role at the center of Ground Zero even more remarkable. For all this, and more, Daniel Libeskind is a deserving choice as man of the Jewish year 5763.

Part of the public and media fascination with Libeskind stems from the fact that his life story reads like a perfectly constructed prologue to his being chosen as the architect to rebuild Ground Zero.

He was born in Poland in 1946 as the child of two Holocaust survivors who had escaped the death camps by spending most of the war years in the Soviet gulag. In 1957, the family emigrated to Israel, and a few years later moved permanently to New York City.

As the child of survivors and a refugee from a totalitarian society, Libeskind seemed the perfect candidate for a project intended to both memorialize a cataclysmic tragedy, and celebrate the freedoms that came under attack on 9/11.

BUT LIBESKIND’S path to Ground Zero was as circuitous as one of his designs.

As a child-prodigy pianist he initially seemed destined for a career as a classical music performer, before abandoning music for architecture in his teens. After studying design at Cooper Union he gradually built a reputation in academia as one of the most innovative minds in the field. What Libeskind wasn’t building though was actual buildings: his "deconstructivist" designs may have looked good on paper, they were considered too avant-garde by most developers for actual construction.

All that changed in 1989 when he won an international competition to design the Berlin Jewish Museum. The project, already deeply controversial, became more so with Libeskind’s entry on the scene. His background as a second-generation survivor raised local hackles, as did his radical plan for the museum — especially the completely empty "Holocaust tower" at the center meant to symbolize the aching void left in the heart of German culture by the destruction of its Jewish community.

Although Libeskind and his plan were pilloried by much of the local press, he persevered, moving to Berlin for a decade to personally oversee the project’s construction. So great was the acclaim given to the museum on its completion that it became a major tourist attraction even before its exhibits were put up.

For many architects, the Berlin project, followed by an equally impressive museum he designed in Saarbrucken to exhibit the works of German-Jewish artist and Auschwitz victim Felix Nussbaum, would have provided a sufficient career climax. But Libeskind took on the even greater challenge of pitting himself against the world’s top architects in the open competition to rebuild the destroyed World Trade Center site.

Alone among the entrants, he preserved the "footprints‘ of the destroyed Twin Towers, by retaining much of the giant pit excavated in the wake of 9/11 that reached down to Manhattan’s bedrock and had, to many, become by itself the most appropriate memorial to the tragedy. Libeskind also provided the site with an inspiring contrast to the pit by anchoring in its base a soaring ’Freedom Tower" set to rise exactly 1,776 feet high. Surrounding these centerpieces would stand a ring of office buildings situated so that a wedge of sunlight would flood the pit every September 11 from 8:46 a.m. to 10:28 a.m., the time period between the strike of the first plane and the collapse of the second tower.

WHEN UNVEILED, the design immediately became the popular favorite, and the charismatic, stylish and hyper-articulate Libeskind himself became a public personality on a scale previously unknown for an architect. The plan’s thematic links to Libeskind’s Holocaust-related work was duly noted, for the most part in approval.

"In gaining the commission,‘ noted historian Gavriel D. Rosenfeld in the Forward, ’[Libeskind’s] design will represent the timely application of an architectural philosophy molded by the paradigmatic rupture of modern Jewish history — the Holocaust — to an architectural challenge unprecedented in American history. In the end, the traumas of Jewish memory may help to shape the future contours of American memory."

Not everyone, though, was so pleased with that prospect. Libeskind was derided in some architectural and media circles as "Deathcamp Danny,‘ and ’a human yahrzeit candle‘ who had created at Ground Zero ’another Wailing Wall."

The powerful New York Times architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp derided the plan as "astonishingly tasteless, emotionally manipulative and close to nostalgia and kitsch."

Libeskind himself does not shy away from the ways in which his personal background bears on his work, a view not often embraced by his professional peers, especially in a field that until recent decades was one of the last fields of artistic endeavour with relatively few Jews among its most honored practitioners.

"I bring my experiences in very conscious ways to all the projects I’ve done,"Libeskind told The Jerusalem Post two years ago at the opening of the Berlin Jewish Museum."My work isn’t immune to deeper things. I don’t agree with the idea that architects remove themselves out of the operation, that they’re universal voices.

"It [architecture] is not a field in which Jews were allowed to work,‘ Libeskind noted. ’Architecture deals with power and money and society itself. For me, architecture is the ultimate humanistic endeavor because it deals with culture. It literally provides the ground, window, and door for the society around it."

Libeskind’s biggest obstacle is now the commercial pressures being exerted on the project that threaten to undercut the boldness of his design. Already he has had to soften some of its harsher aspects, such as putting a park at the bottom of the Ground Zero pit and reducing its depth. Juggling the competing demands of the various municipal, state and federal authorities involved in the project, and standing firm against the compromises being dictated by the private developers with an interest in the site, will take every ounce of Libeskind’s tenacity, diplomacy and ingenuity.

THE STAKES are enormous. The reconstruction of Ground Zero is not simply of consequence to the future of architecture, the well-being of New York City, or the morale of America as it leads the global war on terror. Libeskind’s commission is being metaphorically viewed as no less than the free human soul’s capacity for creating in steel, concrete and glass a definitive response, an affirmation of life and liberty, to the nihilism and evil expressed in the terrible terrorist act that brought down the Twin Towers.

Those charged with seeing this vision brought to fruition have found in Libeskind an artist who firmly believes that his field of expression is fully capable of rising to that challenge.

In discussing with The Jerusalem Post his design for the Morris Wohl Conference Center at Bar-Ilan University, Libeskind didn’t hesitate to ascribe to architecture not only the capability of creating everyday structures that adhere to the highest standards of artistic expression, but even the power to shape and mold the hearts and minds of those who live and dwell in them for the better.

"I think architecture could have a positive effect on the way people live together in the Middle East,"Libeskind said."The shape of your window, where you stand and what you see from your window is all shaped by architecture. So it’s not just a footnote to what people do. It’s the fundamental and, often, unconscious ground on which the world is built.

"If one conceptualizes the issues that Israel, Jews and Arabs and others are facing today — architecture is a means for creating a new dialogue, and a new response to issues that are a part of people’s lives."

At Ground Zero, Libeskind has the opportunity, as no other architect before him, to create on a site that now represents humanity at its worst, an enduring monument to what is best in the human spirit. And if he succeeds, Libeskind will not be just a man of the year, but an artist for the coming millennium.