Daniel Libeskind's first completed project, the Felix Nussbaum Museum, was finally “completed” this month with a new wing erected. The fact is that the project with which the architect won an international competition in the 1990s was severely curtailed during the development process, so the expansion, which had to wait for 13 years, has now become a necessity for the full functioning of the museum.
The new building connects the individual parts of the complex both spatially and visually. Compositionally, it connects the Museum of Cultural History, next to which it is located, and the Felix Nussbaum Museum itself, with which it is connected by a glass passage. The two-story building allowed the creation of a full-fledged lobby and museum shop downstairs and an educational center on the second tier. At the same time, the first floor of the Museum of Cultural History, to which a new wing adjoins, was rebuilt by Libeskind: a transformable lecture hall, a restaurant, a dressing room and toilets were located here.
The dark plaster of the facade of the new building contrasts with the 19th century building of the Museum of Cultural History and the historical building of the city customs, which is also part of this museum ensemble. The positioning system of the openings of the existing building of the Museum of Nussbaum is being developed in the solution of the facade of the new building. Unlike the cut-outs of the windows of the main building of the Museum, the windows of the new one protrude from the plane of the wall as independent volumes.
According to the architect, the new wing of the museum is a transitional element between the past and the future, history and aesthetics.
"House 18.36.54", built by Libeskind in Connecticut, 2 hours from New York, got its name from the number of faces, edges and vertices of the geometric "fold" that forms its volume.
Ordering a residential building for a master of the museum genre was a bold move even for a couple in the New York art world. However, despite the angular forms of the exterior, the interior of the building is a cozy flowing space. The steel structure of the roof is sheathed from the inside with dark oak panels, reminiscent of the huge oak trees growing on the site.
The space on the ground floor is in tune with the dynamics of the roof plane: a flat surface of the floor that allows you to separate the various functional areas, built-in furniture designed by Libeskind in a broken shape, inclined walls at oblique corners. Only the basement rooms - the yoga room, pantry and guest bedroom, and part of the kitchen on the ground floor are lined up in a traditional rectangular coordinate system. Light enters the home through the glazing surfaces between the “folds” of the roof and walls. To collect rainwater that could otherwise damage the cladding steel, gutters are located along the lower ribs of the roof and downpipes are built into the walls.
From the outside, the house resembles a huge boat, whose bronze and steel surface changes color depending on the viewing angle and the time of day.
