Daniel Libeskind (born in 1946 with Łódź, Poland) is an American architect (it was naturalized in 1965). His/her parents were Polish Jews, surviving of the Holocauste. After having studied the music in Israel, Libeskind leaves to the the United States where he studies with the Bronx High School off Science until 1965 then is interested more closely in the Architecture with the Cooper Union School of New York. It supplements its studies of architecture by two last years at the University of Essex (the United Kingdom).

In 1985, Libeskind gains the first price Leone di Petra with the Biennale de Venise. In 1988, it takes part in the exposure of architects deconstructivists to New York to the Museum off Modern Art . Then, of 1989 to 1998, it deals with the realization of the Jewish Musée of Berlin. This museum is not only one room but itself an element of the exposure. Its very particular architecture answers the goal of the existence of the museum. Libeskind has, for example, will trace in particular in the building what it will call the line of the vacuum, made up of six vacuums crossing the museum on all its height, in order to symbolize the absence in the German history (represented by the Blitz ) of the people missing during the Shoah. This building is in charge of symbolism. Daniel Libeskind founds his own company: the Studio Daniel Libeskind based in Berlin. He teaches since 1994 at the University of Los Angeles (California) but also taught in other universities through the whole world. He deals with various projects of which some still in connection with the Judaïsme and the Shoah (Jewish museum of San Francisco, center of the Shoah to Manchester).

Daniel Libeskind was retained for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center to New York. Its project wants at the same time to point out the tragedy of September 11th but to also give hope. The memory and the duty to remember will be symbolized by the safeguarding of “Ground Zero” in basement (the Memory Foundations ) while the hope in the future will be represented by a tower out of arrow ( Freedom Tower ) which should reach more than 541 meters height (it would be then the highest tower inhabited in the world). Another remarkable point and highly symbolic system of the project: every year, on September 11th, the site will be lit by the sun without any shade of 8:46 (first crash landing) to 10:28 (collapse of the second round).

Principal achievements

• 1998 - Jewish Museum of Berlin Photographs
• 2002 - Imperial War Museum North, Manchester, the United Kingdom, Photographs
• the house of Felix Nussbaum ( Felix-Nussbaum-Haus ) to Osnabrück in Germany, a museum dedicated to the life and the work of the painter Felix Nussbaum
• extension in spiral of the Victoria and Albert Museum to London whose construction was cancelled in 2004 for lack of funds
• 2005 - the Center Maurice Wohl, University Bar-Ilan, Ramat Gan, Israel, the new center of convention of the University of Bar-Ilan, a space to hold of the conferences, events special. The project was liberally financed by Maurice Wohl and was completed in October 2005. SDL worked with Ortam-Sahar Ltd for the construction of the Center.
• 2006 - Extension of the Royal Ontario museum to Toronto
• 2007: Daniel Libeskind drew the plans of a new shopping mall of: 46000 square meters with Las Vegas, in the new complex of the City Center .

See too