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Reconfiguring Absence: Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum In Reconfiguring Absence: Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin and the Rhetorical Negotiation of Cultural Display by Brent Allen Saindon B.A., Fort Hays State University, 2004 M.S., University of North Texas, 2006 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2015 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences This dissertation was presented by Brent Allen Saindon It was defended on April 6, 2015 and approved by Randall Halle, Professor, German Languages and Literatures Brenton Malin, Associate Professor, Communication Terry Smith, Professor, History of Art and Architecture Ronald Zboray, Professor, Communication Dissertation Advisor: Lester Olson, Professor, Communication ii Copyright © by Brent Allen Saindon 2015 iii Reconfiguring Absence: Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum Berlin and the Rhetorical Negotiation of Cultural Display Brent Allen Saindon, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2015 This study traces the development of the Jewish Museum Berlin from its inception as the winning entry in a competition for an extension to the Berlin Museum in the summer of 1989 to 2005. Tracking Daniel Libeskind’s design inspirations, public arguments over continuation of the building and its eventual use, I argue that a consistent argumentative trope, characterized by Ernst Bloch’s concept of anticipatory illumination, shows up in these various conversations and influences the building’s eventual use as the Jewish Museum Berlin. The rhetoric of anticipatory illumination, in this case, shifts over time, first emphasizing Jewish cultural absence in Berlin and the need to make that absence visible, but later pushing cultural absence to the background in favor of expressing the need for multicultural tolerance in Germany and beyond. The resulting museum, the Jewish Museum Berlin, combined the specificity of the history of the former in its curatorial design with injunctions for wider concern about intolerance in contemporary societies around the world. The author argues that the shift produces a “doubled heterotopia” in the arrangement of the museum that ultimately is effective for addressing the diverse audiences for the Jewish Museum Berlin. The case study emphasizes that public art and architecture projects can be rich sites of rhetorical invention worthy of close study over the time of their development. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 THE SCHOLARLY LANDSCAPE ................................................................. 10 1.1.1 Museum Studies ............................................................................................. 12 1.1.2 Public Controversy ........................................................................................ 15 1.1.3 Culture ............................................................................................................ 19 1.1.4 Absence ........................................................................................................... 21 1.1.5 Time and Public Memory ............................................................................. 24 1.2 TEXTUAL ANALYSIS AND RHETORICAL HISTORY: REFLECTIONS ON METHOD ..................................................................................................................... 26 1.3 PREVIEW OF CHAPTERS ............................................................................. 38 2.0 BEFORE THE FALL ................................................................................................ 46 2.1 MAKING WEST GERMANY ......................................................................... 51 2.2 MAKING THE CASE FOR JEWISH HISTORICAL DISPLAYS.............. 64 2.3 LIBESKIND’S COMPETITION PROPOSAL .............................................. 73 2.4 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 77 3.0 DESIGNING A SYMBOL OPEN TO THE FUTURE ........................................... 80 3.1 SITING BERLIN ............................................................................................... 87 3.2 SILENT MUSIC ................................................................................................ 96 v 3.3 GEDENKBUCH BERLIN .............................................................................. 107 3.4 TWO WAY STREET ...................................................................................... 114 3.5 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 119 4.0 CANCELLATION ................................................................................................... 123 4.1 EARLY ISSUES IN PROJECT PLANNING ............................................... 129 4.2 THE PRESSURE OF REMAKING BERLIN .............................................. 139 4.3 A FIVE YEAR PLAN ...................................................................................... 144 4.4 WORLD ORDERS .......................................................................................... 150 4.5 DOMESTICATION OF THE DEBATE ....................................................... 163 4.6 THE FORGOTTEN PUBLIC ........................................................................ 171 4.7 BUILDING AND THE NEW BERLIN ......................................................... 179 5.0 DILLEMMAS AND DISTRUST ............................................................................ 186 5.1 INCEPTION OF THE INTEGRATION MODEL ....................................... 193 5.2 INSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATIONS AND THE THREAT TO INTEGRATION ............................................................................................................... 197 5.3 CONCEPTUAL CONTROVERSY GOES PUBLIC ................................... 204 5.4 PUBLIC POLITICAL ALIGNMENTS ........................................................ 218 5.5 NAVIGATING THROUGH THE KNOT OF DOUBLE BINDS ............... 227 5.6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 234 6.0 MUSEUM OR MEMORIAL .................................................................................. 237 6.1 THE MEMORIAL FOR THE MURDERED JEWS OF EUROPE CONTROVERSY ............................................................................................................. 242 6.2 INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES ................................................................... 251 vi 6.3 TE PAPA ON THE SPREE? .......................................................................... 256 6.4 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 261 7.0 TRANSFORMING SPACE: JEWISH MUSEUM AS DOUBLED HETEROTOPIA ....................................................................................................................... 266 7.1 LIBESKIND’S PROPOSAL AS HETEROTOPIA ...................................... 273 7.2 BERLIN, GLOBALIZED ............................................................................... 279 7.3 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 287 8.0 CONCLUDING REMARKS .................................................................................. 291 8.1 A NOTE REGARDING RESEARCH ORIENTATION ............................. 295 8.2 POINTING TOWARD THE FUTURE ......................................................... 299 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 304 vii PREFACE A project like this cannot happen without significant economic support from various outlets. The Getty Research Library gave a generous grant that allowed me to visit their archives in California. Much of the first few chapters were only possible because of the access I was permitted to Libeskind’s design materials. The Cultural Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh provided a research fellowship for the 2009-2010 academic year that allowed me to travel for extensive periods of time to Berlin. While there, the Research Library at the Jewish Museum Berlin and the newspaper archive at the Berliner Stadtbibliothek made most of the materials for the later chapters available and easy to find. The Communication Department at the University of Pittsburgh supported my work as a student for several years. And last, but certainly not least, Davis & Elkins College, my employer for the past four academic years, has been patient with the development of this manuscript and has given some material support for my work. This work has also benefitted from the insights of many thoughtful committee members that have helped to discipline my thinking. Dr. Lester C. Olson has been a source of support and motivation throughout the entire process, and has helped to guide much of the content in each chapter. He has sacrificed much, including an enormous amount of time devoted to editorial work and idea provocation, to make this study a reality. Dr. Ronald Zboray and Mary Saracino Zboray have also provided positive reinforcement and have shaped some of my thinking viii regarding research methods. Dr. William Fusfield introduced me to the ideas of Ernst Bloch, a thinker I might have otherwise overlooked. Dr. Terry Smith has been a great source
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