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Designing buildings "in the context of the Holocaust and tragedy" was starting to bug Daniel Libeskind.

His wrenching, twisting designs in Germany and England were earning him numerous awards and cementing his status as one of the world's most avant-garde architects.

But Libeskind yearned for a project that would enable him to show another side of himself, yet still trumpet Judaism.

He wanted to incorporate light, not dwell in darkness. He wanted to look to the future, not be locked into the past. He wanted to celebrate life, not writhe in the agony of inhumanity.

Two years ago, he got his dream assignment: the new Jewish Museum San Francisco.

Tuesday, Libeskind's striking design — a modern building of intense angles, which viciously intersects an old power station — was unveiled before San Francisco's Redevelopment Agency.

Approval of the Berlin-based architect's first project in the United States is expected in March, and museum officials anticipate the long-delayed, $60 million project will be completed in late 2002 or early 2003.

The 100,000-square-foot building in the ever-more-vibrant Yerba Buena arts district is expected to catapult the Jewish Museum from a small, community-based museum into a major cultural facility. It will also "be a landmark for Jewish culture in America," according to Connie Wolf, museum director.

At first glance, Libeskind's design looks as if it's the earthquake aftermath of an angular, golden tower having collapsed on top of a 93-year-old brick building.

But it really is a "complex weave" of Hebrew letters, Jewish identity, a former PG&E substation, the surrounding skyscrapers, and architecture that at once touches the past and juts into the future.

"I was thrilled to be able to incorporate culture and imagination into something unique," Libeskind said. "This is a museum dealing with Jewish issues, dealing with a future."

Libeskind based his upwardly sloping three-story design on the two Hebrew letters of chai, with all their symbolic, mathematical and emblematic structure.

A chai is made up of a chet and a yud.

His design divides the chet into two vavs and then interlocks the vavs in a structure that will house the museum's main component — the core exhibition series.

The two-story, 12,000 square-foot core area will showcase a rotation of exhibits — there will be no permanent collection — on Jewish topics such as land, language, memory and laughter. Eighteen exhibits will be presented over the first five years; 18 was chosen because it's the numerical expression of chai, the Hebrew word for life.

A huge corner of the building is modeled from a yud.

"Many texts have been written just on these letters," Libeskind said. "This is the beauty of this idea. It's eternal."

Libeskind's design also includes many huge windows. The power station itself has eight big windows on its front facade, but Libeskind made sure to bathe the modern structure in light as well.

For most visitors, his windows will appear to be nothing more than huge, abstract-shaped openings, each bending around a corner where wall meets roof.

However, each of the four large windows is actually in the shape of a Hebrew letter: pey, resh, dalet and samech. Together, the letters form pardes, the Hebrew word for orchard.

"It's as if the letters fell from the sky," Libeskind said. "They will create a pattern of light that will give the museum even more Jewish identity [because] a Jewish museum should not be like a Chinese museum or a like an industrial museum. It should be Jewish."

Libeskind's past projects have been Jewish, but in a different way. His recently completed Jewish Museum in Berlin, his Shoah Center in Manchester, England, and his Felix Nussbaum Haus in Osnabrück, Germany, all resonate with themes that are solemn and painful.

"I said to him, 'Daniel, you've done midnight, now you can do the other side of midnight,'" said Rabbi Brian Lurie, the museum's president. "He grasped at it. Even before he ever got the job, he totally understood what we were trying to accomplish — the vitality and joy of being Jewish."

Before turning to architecture, the 53-year-old native of Poland and son of Holocaust refugees had a career as a virtuouso musician in Israel and New York. He became a U.S. citizen at age 19 in 1965.

Now a resident of Berlin, he is a noted architectural theorist and has held teaching positions in several countries, including guest chairs at Yale, the University of Chicago and the University of London.

He is credited with infusing a new philosophical discourse in architecture, and has received numerous prizes, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Architecture, the Berlin Cultural Prize and the Goethe Medallion.

The Jewish Museum San Francisco assignment presented Libeskind with several challenges. For starters, he had to maintain the integrity of the substation, a historical landmark that he called "a ruin."

"It was a very complex site," he said. "Not just dealing with an existing building, but one that used to be a space for batteries and equipment. It wasn't meant for human beings."

He was also dealing with a small piece of land surrounded by a plethora of development. When completed, the Jewish Museum will be in the shadows of the 41-story Marriott Hotel and the currently-under-construction 42-story Four Seasons hotel and condominium.

In fact, three above-ground floors of the Jewish Museum, including administrative offices and a special exhibition hall, will be tucked underneath the back wall of the Four Seasons' concourse.

"It wasn't just 'Here's a site and build a building here,'" Libeskind said. "It's struggling for identity among huge forces all around it — which is appropriate for a Jewish museum."

Libeskind intersected the former substation with what amounts to another building, a frenzied collection of right angles and sweeping rectangles. "There's a dialogue between the two structures," he said.

Together they form a somewhat tense but starkly powerful alliance that Libeskind said combines "passion and rebellion — two aspects of a Jewish history."

When a visitor walks in the museum's front door, through the old power station, he or she will be confronted by a modern, geometric structure rising majestically from the interior.

Similarly, when a visitor is on the top floor of the museum, he or she will be able to look down on the old power station as well as expansive lobby area, shops and a restaurant. A 275-seat theater will be below ground level.

Museum director Wolf said the concept of just paying your money and going inside a routine gallery is passé.

"You are not confronted or bombarded with routine in this building," she said. "The first thing you do when you walk in this building is experience the building."

Libeskind said the idea of creating a structure for the 21st century was very important, and he was cognizant of perhaps setting the tone for future San Francisco architecture.

Ironically, however, the museum's Jewish building blocks will probably be lost on most visitors. The chai, yud and Hebrew-letter windows appear to be bold, modern geometric shapes — and nothing else.

If people don't realize what they're looking at, it won't bother Libeskind.

"Most people who listen to Beethoven or Bach have no clue as to the complex math and fugal compositions," he said. "Most people just love to listen to it. The people who want to find out more will find out more. Why is a window like this? They'll read the [museum brochure] and find out it's a pey."

Lurie said $27.5 million so far has been raised for the $100 million project. All of that money is local, he added, saying a push to raise about $20 million from outside of the Bay Area community hasn't yet begun.

Of the $100 million, $35 million will go toward constructing the site. Another $25 million will pay for "soft costs," such as moving, computers and architect fees. The remaining $40 million will be set aside for an endowment and startup costs.

Libeskind realizes he might have critics.

His current work in London, a spiraling addition to the Victoria and Albert Museum scheduled for completion in 2004, has been questioned. "People said never could a new building come in there," he said.

"But I'm very certain San Francisco is not some second-rate place. Sure, there will always be discussions, and that's healthy. [But this building] will contribute to the vitality of the city. It's at the heart of the city."