New Jersey Jewish News
Monmouth County Feature
Ground Zero architect shares his lofty vision
News that construction may at last begin on the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site came at nearly the same moment that the tower’s visionary was singing its praises before an audience in Deal.
Architect Daniel Libeskind, whose master plan for the rebuilding includes the 1,776-foot, 65-story Freedom Tower, spoke April 25 at the Ruth Hyman JCC of Greater Monmouth County.
Although the talk was intended to promote his recent autobiography, Breaking Ground: Adventures in Life and Architecture, it allowed the 100-plus members of the audience to hear the architect’s vision of the tower moments after learning that developer Larry Silverstein had accepted an offer that would pave the way for its construction.
“It’s important to restore the skyline of New York,” Libeskind said in response to a question from the audience about the tower. “Memory is key to understanding the future.”
His statement echoed one he made earlier in the evening in an on-stage interview with Jon Kalish, the veteran radio producer and writer.
Asked about the tower’s height and its visual reference, the Statue of Liberty, Libeskind replied, “I see them not as abstract metaphors, but as something very real and very much a part of our everyday lives. To me, the Statue of Liberty is a true flame of liberty and not just a piece of rhetoric.
“It is a statement about freedom that we often take for granted. 1776 is not just a symbol, but a date that inscribes liberty for the United States and for the world,” he said. “Together these two things belong to all Americans across all political divides, all parties, all opinions. They are what America is all about.”
Libeskind’s presentation was the seventh and final program of this year’s JCC Festival of Books, Culture and the Arts.
And it was well-received, according to Leslie Posnock of Ocean Township, a JCC board member and chair of the annual event.
“He’s a visionary architect and brilliant speaker,” she said. “His commitment and passion for his work was apparent in every answer he gave. He enjoyed the audience, his time here.”
Kalish and Libeskind discussed such topics as the roadblocks Libeskind has encountered as the master planner of the WTC site, his other worldwide projects, and his personal history as a Jew born in Poland, raised for a time in Israel, and educated as an architect in the United States, where he arrived, mostly for good, in 1959 (see sidebar, below).
Libeskind acknowledged what he characterized as “a series of brutal and very public battles” with Silverstein and the Freedom Tower’s eventual architect, David Childs. The battles culminated positively with all the principals, as Libeskind recalled, “standing shoulder to shoulder when the plan was unveiled.”
For the 60-year-old Libeskind — who immigrated from Poland to Israel at age 11 — architecture is not just a job, not “business as usual.”
Instead, he said, it is “the closest thing to storytelling. It tells you something. It’s a connection to life. You’re not just doing something; it has a spiritual connection, pursuing an idea, a spirit.”
The audience questions and Libeskind’s answers focused for the most part on his plan to replace the fallen Twin Towers.
“It’s not an easy task,” Libeskind conceded of his work on the Ground Zero project — and of his earlier design of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, which, ironically, opened on Sept. 11, 2001.
“It’s not just a matter of a few drawings; it’s a commitment, and difficult for all authorities. You have to believe in it. You have to stick with it.”
For Irwin H. Kizel of Manalapan, the opportunity to hear from a fellow architect of Libeskind’s stature could not be missed.
“It’s only the second time I have seen and heard a celebrity architect,” said Kizel, a 30-year veteran architect. “I wanted to hear and learn what sets him apart from architects like me and others who don’t make the headlines every day.”
Another architect, Frank Tomaino of Deal, had come to hear Libeskind’s perspectives on the rebuilding of lower Manhattan. “It was nice to hear directly from him,” said Tomaino, who said he discounted newspaper reports he had read along the way. “I liked his positive attitude, like sticking to it and sort of finishing the whole deal.”
Danielle Matuch, from Middletown, who graduated from the architectural program at Syracuse University in May and is working in Princeton, said she was impressed about how Libeskind’s “life influences his design.”
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