One of these days, Daniel Libeskind is going to design a building without space for chairs. Simply put, the man does not enjoy sitting down.
“I seldom sit,” said the architect with a smile, after finally being cajoled into a chair during a rare interview last week at the massive San Francisco office of Chong Partners Architects.
“If you have a lot of time, you can sit and be meditative. When you have things to do, you are always running. Growing up in Poland, I was always running behind my parents, even when they were going for a walk. I guess it’s the Eastern European genes.”
And, no sooner is Libeskind seated than he’s up again, demonstrating the ins and outs of his design for the Contemporary Jewish Museum on Jesse Street.
The architect — perhaps the most illustrious in the world today — is a short, trim man who dresses in a manner that could be described as Johnny Cash meets Mr. Blackwell. He was outfitted in a sharp black blazer over a black, collarless button-up, black slacks and black cowboy boots. His avant-garde, rectangular glasses were, of course, black. Just about the only color emanated from his twinkling blue eyes.
Hovering over the breadbox-sized model complete with ant-sized stick figures dotting the exterior, Libeskind notes that he designed his structure with this Jolly Green Giant’s-eye view in mind.
“People will see this building from many angles. They will see it from the high-rise buildings. They will see it across Yerba Buena Gardens. This is really a composition. It’s not a free-standing building you see just once,” said Libeskind, who speaks with the incredible rapidity of an Israeli or New Yorker but with an Eastern European tinge.
“That’s a unique challenge, but it’s a beautiful challenge.”
Libeskind sees his structure’s “Jewishness” emanating from its mix of “realism and pragmatism” along with “values and traditions that are eternal … forward-looking without ever forgetting the past.”
“Many people think tradition is something that is in the past,” he said, acknowledging that his design does not immediately conjure up the term “traditional.”
“But true tradition is living tradition. Living tradition means you have to be open to contemporary feelings and young people, not just a past audience. You need a vibrant new audience. I don’t have to tell you that San Francisco is a place with a vibrant mix of people. This will be a place to come to feel a part of this place.”
Yet this has been a challenging project. After originally designing a museum five years ago carrying a heftier price tag during headier times, Libeskind was forced to cut roughly $20 million off his design’s costs.
While many people and publications have been bandying the term “scaled-down” in describing his current design, Liebeskind sees this as a pejorative and shuns it.
“In terms of square feet, it is smaller. But smaller is not scaled down,” he said. “Scaled-down” is not the first adjective he’d pick to describe a structure with 50-foot ceilings, after all.
“In fact, I think this thing has gotten better. My wife, who is often my critic, asks me how it is that when a [budget] is less, I can do a better building. Is that my fate?”
Liebeskind stresses that he did not simply take his original plans and run them through “a shrinking machine.” He eliminated extra floors that would have been devoted to administrative duties while “re-inventing” a more “compact” building.
But he never let go of his concept of basing the unique, asymmetrical design around the Hebrew letters chet and yud. (For those of you who have struggled to depict the letters in Libeskind’s design, he notes that it is not a straight, literal depiction: “Hebrew letters are not just meant to be read, but experienced.”)
Not too many Hebrew letters come in electric blue, however. The architect chose the eye-catching hue with the museum’s existing weathered, red-brick façade in mind.
Plus, “blue is beautiful,” he said with a laugh.