1. Architecture is not based on concreteand steel and the
elements of the soil.It's based on wonder.2. Expressive spaces are
not mute.Expressive spaces are not spacesthat simply confirm what
we already know.Expressive spaces may disturb us.3. Space is
complex.Space is something that folds out of itself into completely
new worlds.4. I try, in every building, to take that virtual
world,which is so enigmatic and so rich,and create something in the
real world.5. I think, in space,the fact that sustainability can
actually, in the futuretranslate into a raw space,a space that
isn't decorated,a space that is not mannered in any source,but a
space that might be cool in terms of its temperature,might be
refractive to our desires.6. So not the habitual architecture that
instills in usthe false sort of stability,but an architecture that
is full of tension,an architecture that goes beyond itselfto reach
a human soul and a human heart,and that breaks out of the shackles
of habits.7. When we see the same kind of architecturewe become
immured in that world of those angles,of those lights, of those
materials.8. I think architecture should be risky.You know it costs
a lot of money and so on, but yes,it should not play it safe.9. And
of course that is finally what I believe architecture to be.It's
about space. It's not about fashion.It's not about decoration.It's
about creating with minimal meanssomething which can not be
repeated,cannot be simulated in any other sphere.10. It's not about
the changing fashions, changing theories.It's about carving out a
space for trees.It's carving out a space where nature can enterthe
domestic world of a city.A space where something which has never
seen a light of daycan enter into the inner workings of a
density.And I think that is really the nature of architecture.
I'll start with my favorite muse, Emily Dickinson,who said that
wonder is not knowledge, neither is it ignorance.It's something
which is suspendedbetween what we believe we can be,and a tradition
we may have forgotten.And I think, when I listen to these
incredible people here,I've been so inspired -- so many incredible
ideas, so many visions.And yet, when I look at the environment
outside,you see how resistant architecture is to change.You see how
resistant it is to those very ideas.We can think them out. We can
create incredible things.And yet, at the end,it's so hard to change
a wall.We applaud the well-mannered box.But to create a space that
never existed is what interests me;to create something that has
never been,a space that we have never entered except in our minds
and our spirits.And I think that's really what architecture is
based on.Architecture is not based on concreteand steel and the
elements of the soil.It's based on wonder.And that wonder is really
what has created the greatest cities,the greatest spaces that we
have had.And I think that is indeed what architecture is. It is a
story.By the way, it is a story that is told throughits hard
materials.But it is a story of effort and struggleagainst
improbabilities.If you think of thegreat buildings, of the
cathedrals, of the temples,of the pyramids, of pagodas,of cities in
India and beyond,you think of how incredible this is that that was
realizednot by some abstract idea, but by people.So, anything that
has been made can be unmade.Anything that has been made can be made
better.There it is: the things that I really believeare of
important architecture.These are the dimensions that I like to work
with.It's something very personal.It's not, perhaps, the dimensions
appreciated by art criticsor architecture critics orcity
planners.But I think these are the necessary oxygenfor us to live
in buildings, to live in cities,to connect ourselves in a social
space.And I therefore believe that optimism is what drives
architecture forward.It's the only profession where you have to
believe in the future.You can be a general, a politician, an
economist who is depressed,a musician in a minor key, a painter
indark colors.But architecture is that complete ecstasy that the
future can be better.And it is that belief that I think drives
society.And today we have a kind of evangelical pessimism all
around us.And yet it is in times like thisthat I think architecture
can thrive withbig ideas,ideas that are not small. Think of the
great cities.Think of theEmpire State Building, the Rockefeller
Center.They were built in times that werenot really the best of
times in a certain way.And yet that energy and power of
architecturehas driven an entire social and political space that
these buildings occupy.So again, I am a believer in the
expressive.I have never been a fan of the neutral.I don't like
neutrality in life, in anything.I think expression.And it's
likeespresso coffee, you know, you take the essence of the
coffee.That's what expression is.It's been missing in much of the
architecture,because we think architecture is the realm of the
neutered,the realm of the kind of a state that has no opinion,that
has no value.And yet, I believe it is the expression --expression
of the city, expression of our own space --that gives meaning to
architecture.And, of course, expressive spaces are not
mute.Expressive spaces are not spacesthat simply confirm what we
already know.Expressive spaces may disturb us.And I think that's
also part of life.Life is not just an anesthetic to make us
smile,but to reach out across the abyss of history,to places we
have never been,and would have perhaps been, had we not been so
lucky.So again, radical versus conservative.Radical, what does it
mean? It's something which is rooted,and something which is rooted
deep in a tradition.And I think that is what architecture is, it's
radical.It's not just a conservation in formaldehydeof dead
forms.It is actually a living connectionto the cosmic event that we
are part of,and a story that is certainly ongoing.It's not
something that has a good ending or a bad ending.It's actually a
story in which our acts themselvesare pushing the story in a
particular way.So again I am a believer in the radical
architecture.You know the Soviet architecture of that buildingis
the conservation.It's like the old Las Vegas used to be.It's about
conserving emotions, conserving the traditionsthat have obstructed
the mind in moving forwardand of course what is radical is to
confront them.And I think our architecture is a confrontationwith
our own senses.Therefore I believe it should not be cool.There is a
lot of appreciation for the kind of cool architecture.I've always
been an opponent of it. I think emotion is needed.Life without
emotion would really not be life.Even the mind is emotional.There
is no reason which does not take a positionin the ethical sphere,
in the philosophical mystery of what we are.So I think emotion is a
dimensionthat is important to introduce into city space, into city
life.And of course, we are all about the struggle of emotions.And I
think that is what makes the world a wondrous place.And of course,
the confrontation of the cool, the unemotional with emotion,is a
conversation that I thinkcities themselves have fostered.I think
that is the progress of cities.It's not only the forms of
cities,but the fact that they incarnate emotions,not just of those
who build them,but of those who live there as well.Inexplicable
versus understood. You know, too often we want to understand
everything.But architecture is not the language of words.It's a
language. But it is not a language that can be reducedto a series
of programmatic notes that we can verbally write.Too many buildings
that you see outside that are so banaltell you a story, but the
story is very short,which says, "We have no story to tell you.So
the important thing actually,is to introduce the actual
architectural dimensions,which might be totally inexplicable in
words,because they operate in proportions,in materials, in
light.They connect themselves into various sources,into a kind of
complex vector matrixthat isn't really frontalbut is really
embedded in the lives,and in the history of a city, and of a
people.So again, the notion that a building should just be
explicitI think is a false notion,which has reduced architecture
into banality.Hand versus the computer.Of course, what would we be
without computers?Our whole practice depends on computing.But the
computer should not just be the glove of the hand;the hand should
really be the driver of the computing power.Because I believe that
the handin all its primitive, in all its physiological
obscurity,has a source, though the source is unknown,though we
don't have to be mystical about it.We realize that the hand has
been given usby forces that are beyond our own autonomy.And I think
when I draw drawingswhich may imitate the computer, but are not
computer drawings --drawings that can come from sourcesthat are
completely not known, not normal, not seen,yet the hand -- and
that's what I really, to all of you who are working --how can we
make the computer respond to our handrather than the hand
responding to the computer.I think that's part of what the
complexity of architecture is.Because certainly we have gotten used
to the propagandathat the simple is the good. But I don't believe
it.Listening to all of you, the complexity of thought,the
complexity of layers of meaning is overwhelming.And I think we
shouldn't shy away in architecture,You know, brain surgery, atomic
theory,genetics, economicsare complex complex fields.There is no
reason that architecture should shy awayand present this illusory
world of the simple.It is complex. Space is complex.Space is
something that folds out of itself into completely new worlds.And
as wondrous as it is,it cannot be reduced to a kind of
simplificationthat we have often come to be admired.And yet, our
lives are complex.Our emotions are complex.Our intellectual desires
are complex.So I do believe that architecture as I see itneeds to
mirror that complexity in every single space that we have,in every
intimacy that we possess.Of course that means that architecture is
political.The political is not an enemy of architecture.The
politeama is the city. It's all of us together.And I've always
believed that the act of architecture,even a private house, when
somebody else will see it, is a political act,because it will be
visible to others.And we live in a world which is connecting us
more and more.So again, the evasion of that sphere,which has been
so endemic to that sort of pure architecture,the autonomous
architecture that is just an abstract objecthas never appealed to
me.And I do believe that this interactionwith the history, with
history that is often very difficult,to grapple with it, to createa
position that is beyond our normal expectations and to create a
critique.Because architecture is also the asking of questions.It's
not only the giving of answers.It's also, just like life, the
asking of questions.Therefore it is important that it be real.You
know we can simulate almost anything.But the one thing that can be
ever simulatedis the human heart, the human soul.And architecture
is so closely intertwined with itbecause we are born somewhere and
we die somewhere.So the reality of architecture is visceral. It's
not intellectual.It's not something that comes to us from books and
theories.It's the real that we touch -- the door, the window,the
threshold, the bed --such prosaic objects. And yet,I try, in every
building, to take that virtual world,which is so enigmatic and so
rich,and create something in the real world.Create a space for an
office,a space of sustainabilitythat really works between that
virtualityand yet can be realized as something real.Unexpected
versus habitual.What is a habit? It's just a shackle for
ourselves.It's a self-induced poison.So the unexpected is always
unexpected.You know, it's true, the cathedrals, as unexpected,will
always be unexpected.You know Frank Gehry's buildings, they will
continue to be unexpected in the future.So not the habitual
architecture that instills in usthe false sort of stability,but an
architecture that is full of tension,an architecture that goes
beyond itselfto reach a human soul and a human heart,and that
breaks out of the shackles of habits.And of course habits are
enforced by architecture.When we see the same kind of
architecturewe become immured in that world of those angles,of
those lights, of those materials.We think the world really looks
like our buildings.And yet our buildings are pretty much limited by
the techniques and wondersthat have been part of them.So again, the
unexpected which is also the raw.And I often think of the raw and
the refined.What is raw? The raw, I would sayis the naked
experience, untouched by luxury,untouched by expensive
materials,untouched by the kind of refinementthat we associate with
high culture.So the rawness, I think, in space,the fact that
sustainability can actually, in the futuretranslate into a raw
space,a space that isn't decorated,a space that is not mannered in
any source,but a space that might be cool in terms of its
temperature,might be refractive to our desires.A space that doesn't
always follow uslike a dog that has been trained to follow us,but
moves ahead into directions of demonstratingother possibilities,
other experiences,that have never been part of the vocabulary of
architecture.And of course that juxtaposition is of great interest
to mebecause it creates a kind of a spark of new energy.And so I do
like something which is pointed, not blunt,something which is
focused on reality,something that has the power, through its
leverage,to transform even a very small space.So architecture maybe
is not so big, like science,but through its focal pointit can
leverage in an Archimedian waywhat we think the world is really
about.And often it takes just a buildingto change our experience of
what could be done, what has been done,how the world has remained
both in between stability and instability.And of course buildings
have their shapes.Those shapes are difficult to change.And yet, I
do believe that in every social space,in every public space,there
is a desire to communicate morethan just that blunt thought, that
blunt technique,but something that pinpoints, and can point in
various directionsforward, backward, sideways and around.So that is
indeed what is memory.So I believe that my main interest is to
memory.Without memory we would be amnesiacs.We would not know which
way we were going,and why we are going where we're going.So I've
been never interested in the forgettable reuse,rehashing of the
same things over and over again,which, of course, get accolades of
critics.Critics like the performance to be repeated again and again
the same way.But I rather play somethingcompletely unheard of,and
even with flaws,than repeat the same thing over and over which has
been hollowedby its meaninglessness.So again, memory is the city,
memory is the world.Without the memory there would be no story to
tell.There would be nowhere to turn.The memorable, I think, is
really our world, what we think the world is.And it's not only our
memory,but those who remember us,which means that architecture is
not mute.It's an art of communication.It tells a story. The story
can reach into obscure desires.It can reach into sources that are
not explicitly available.It can reach into millenniathat have been
buried,and return them in a just and unexpected equity.
So again, I think the notion thatthe best architecture is silent
has never appealed to me.Silence maybe is good for a cemetery but
not for a city.Cities should be full of vibrations, full of sound,
full of music.And that indeed is the architectural missionthat I
believe is important,is to create spaces that are vibrant,that are
pluralistic,that can transform the most prosaic activities,and
raise them to a completely different expectation.Create a shopping
center, a swimming placethat is more like a museum than like
entertainment.And these are our dreams.And of course risk. I think
architecture should be risky.You know it costs a lot of money and
so on, but yes,it should not play it safe.It should not play it
safe, because if it plays it safeit's not moving us in a direction
that we want to be.And I think, of course,risk is what underlies
the world.World without risk would not be worth living.So yes, I do
believe that the risk we take in every building.Risks to create
spaces that have never been cantilevered to that extent.Risks of
spaces that have never beenso dizzying,as they should be, for a
pioneering city.Risks that really move architectureeven with all
its flaws, into a space which is much betterthat the ever again
repeatedhollowness of a ready-made thing.And of course that is
finally what I believe architecture to be.It's about space. It's
not about fashion.It's not about decoration.It's about creating
with minimal meanssomething which can not be repeated,cannot be
simulated in any other sphere.And there of course is the space that
we need to breathe,is the space we need to dream.These are the
spaces that arenot just luxurious spaces for some of us,but are
important for everybody in this world.So again, it's not about the
changing fashions, changing theories.It's about carving out a space
for trees.It's carving out a space where nature can enterthe
domestic world of a city.A space where something which has never
seen a light of daycan enter into the inner workings of a
density.And I think that is really the nature of architecture.
Now I am a believer in democracy.I don't like beautiful
buildingsbuilt for totalitarian regimes.Where people cannot speak,
cannot vote, cannot do anything.We too often admire those
buildings. We think they are beautiful.And yet when I think of the
poverty of societywhich doesn't give freedom to its people,I don't
admire those buildings.So democracy, as difficult as it is, I
believe in it.And of course, at Ground Zero what else?It's such a
complex project.It's emotional. There is so many interests.It's
political. There is so many parties to this project.There is so
many interests. There's money. There's political power.There are
emotions of the victims.And yet, in all its messiness, in all its
difficulties,I would not have liked somebody to say,"This is the
tabula rasa, mister architect -- do whatever you want."I think
nothing good will come out of that.I think architecture is about
consensus.And it is about the dirty word "compromise." Compromise
is not bad.Compromise, if it's artistic,if it is able to cope with
its strategies --and there is my first sketch and the last
rendering --it's not that far away.And yet, compromise,
consensus,that is what I believe in.And Ground Zero, despite all
its difficulties, it's moving forward.It's difficult. 2011, 2013.
Freedom Tower, the memorial.And that is where I end.I was inspired
when I came here as an immigranton a ship like millions of
others,looking at America from that point of view.This is America.
This is liberty.This is what we dream about. Its
individuality,demonstrated in the skyline. It's resilience.And
finally, it's the freedom that America represents,not just to me,
as an immigrant, but to everyone in the world. Thank you.Chris
Anderson: I've got a question.So have you come to peacewith the
process that happened at Ground Zeroand the loss of the original,
incredible design that you came up with?
Daniel Libeskind: Look. We have to cure ourselvesof the notion
that we are authoritarian,that we can determine everything that
happens.We have to rely on others, and shape the process in the
best way possible.I came from the Bronx. I was taught not to be a
loser,not to be somebody who just gives up in a fight.You have to
fight for what you believe. You don't always wineverything you want
to win. But you can steer the process.And I believe that what will
be built at Ground Zerowill be meaningful, will be inspiring,will
tell other generations of the sacrifices,of the meaning of this
event.Not just for New York, but for the world.Chris Anderson:
Thank you so much, Daniel Libeskind.
Sumber:
http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_libeskind_s_17_words_of_architectural_inspiration/transcript
The Royal Ontario Museum, Daniel Libeskind,
Toronto,Ontario,Canada, 2007
Sumber:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Darfur_at_the_Royal_Ontario_Museum_as_part_of_the_Toronto_International_Film_Festival_07.jpg
Imperial War Museum North, Daniel Libeskind, The Quasy Trafford
WharfRoad, Trafford Park, Greater Manchester, England , 2001
Sumber:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Imperial_War_Museum_2008cropped.jpg
Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, Daniel Libeskind, Tat Hong
Avenue,Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, China, 2011
Sumber:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Run_Run_Shaw_Creative_Media_Centre_Exterior.jpg
TheDenver Art Museum, Daniel Libeskind, Denver,Colorado, United
States, 2006
Sumber:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DenverArtMuseum1.jpg
Bundeswehr Military History Museum, Daniel Libeskind, Dresden,
Germany, 2011
Sumber:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Milit%C3%A4rhistorisches_Museum_in_Dresden_6.jpg
ILMI ZAKARIA ROSYADI (21020111130118)