Global Building Sites — Between Past and Future

In July 2007, architect Daniel Libeskind gave a public presentation of his work at Cambridge University to open the conference ‘InEvidence — Witnessing Cities and the Case of Berlin’. In response to questions from architectural scholar, Peter Carl, he took stock of key projects from his portfolio. This article constitutes a record of the presentation. In his recent work, Daniel Libeskind has moved freely between well-known building sites of modernity such as Berlin and New York and more recently developed global sites presenting new meanings and challenges to the architect and to contemporary architectural culture. A recurring feature in the text is the idea of buildings as witnesses to the past, in the present, and for the future. It records the conceptual and practical demands that have to be faced by projects for architectural innovation. And it documents the architect’s own personal recollection of, and witness to, the projects in question and the historical experience — political, cultural, commercial, and ethical — out of which they are built. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.