In “Of Other Spaces” Michel Foucault describes heterotopias as ‘places of otherness’, a paradox made by the juxtaposition of polar opposites; which differ completely from those spaces that they mirror and evoke. The feeling of ‘otherness’ in a given place emphasizes the contradiction within it, and encourages the user to question what rhetorical and cultural values are at play to create this contrast. This curiosity and analysis when entering a space is particularly relevant when entering a museum such as Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin in which the building speaks as much of its contents as the contents themselves. Foucault described six characteristics to identify a heterotopia, this essay aims to outline those characteristics and how they assist the understanding of the Jewish Museum’s abstract symbolisms.
Heterotopias are universal; however, they present themselves in diverse ways. Foucault classifies them into two categories: crisis and deviation. The first is described as a place reserved or forbidden for a specific demographic who can be considered in ‘crisis’. The Jewish Museum in Berlin can be classified in this category as it responded to the need for visibility of the Jewish culture and history within the Berlin society; and whilst the building wasn’t meant to be exclusively inhabited by one group of people, it did respond to the necessity of the Jewish community to be recognized as part of the Berlin society. Right from the brief of the competition, the museum could not be just a space to house an exhibition, it also had to be a monument, or counter- monument as Esra Akcan describes it. Ackan argues that monuments establish a dominant voice for that which they commemorate, Libeskind aimed to do the exact opposite: design a building which speaks of all the voices that were lost due to the Holocaust, hence a countermemorial.
Conceived in 1989 and finalized in 1998, given the evolution Berlin was experiencing in this decade the design progressed along with the events that were changing the city around it; from the moment it was selected, to even after it was built and the exhibitions inside it were finalized. The growth from an extension to a full- fledged museum, and the continuous response from the design to its surrounding conditions characterizes this museum as a heterotopia.
Foucault lists museums as heterotopias due to their tracking of the passing time and their inherent timelessness, however the Jewish Museum takes the juxtaposition a step further: the museum aimed to highlight both the presence and the absence of the Jewish community in Berlin. Libeskind achieved this by overlapping the zigzagging line of the main structure, showing the contorted history of Jews in Germany; with a straight but intermittent line that cuts through the whole building, leaving a series of blank spaces that make visible all the lives that became invisible. Bettina Matthews argues however, that the importance placed on the absence doesn’t help or acknowledge the present Jewish community; that the symbolisms are too focused on the past, and don’t look enough at what the Jewish community is and can be. Nevertheless, Cho Ling suggests that the very idea of a museum is to gather and classify the past, in this case Jewish history, which can’t be done without placing an emphasis on what was lost and what could’ve been.
Heterochronies are moments a space that allow the user to experience time in different intensities, they’re essential to heterotopias. Brent Allen Saindon argues that Libeskind suggested with his design a contrasting conception to the customary historical view that the hour zero, or the direct aftermath of the Second World War, marked the beginning, not the end of time. In this way, Libeskind wanted to reconnect Berliners with their past, a time where, for better or for worse, Germany had a solid identity and made decisions that they later couldn’t under the occupation of the Allies.
The way in which a space secludes itself from its context and how it is penetrated by the latter or ‘rite of entrance’ in which the individual must go through a process of ‘purification’ is another characteristic of heterotopias. In the case of the Jewish Museum, Libeskind introduces the visitor to the space by putting the entrance inside the Collegienhaus, in this way reasserting the linkage between the German and Jewish culture. Furthermore, the web of underground pathways is the first impression the structure makes on the visitor. It is formed by three axes: continuity, exile and death; which symbolize the three major experiences of German Judaism, in this way preparing the visitor with the mindset that the building requires in the rest of its symbolism.
The final principle of a heterotopia is to have a purposeful relationship with the space that surrounds it. The seeming disconnection between the Collegienhaus and the Jewish Museum may suggest the detachment between the German and Jewish culture; yet the between the Jewish Museum and the Collegienhaus
Libeskind’s museum respects the height of the baroque building, proposing an equity between them. Moreover, on closer inspection, the afore mentioned entrance pierces what used to be the Berlin Museum at all levels, hinting not only at the intricate and violent relationship between both cultures, but also at the void that the loss of Jewish lives left at the core of the city, as James Young describes.
Spaces are often not perceived linearly; but in an often contradictory manner, in which connections have to be revisited and strengthened, in this way heterotopias add a new layer of information for users to experience and scholars to analyse. By analysing the Jewish Museum in Berlin through the scope of heterotopias, this essay has aimed to explore the extent at which Daniel Libeskind was successful at portraying through symbolism the experience of Judaism in Germany. Whilst some may share the opinion of Bettina Matthews that this building focuses too much on the nostalgia of the past and not enough on the hope of the present and future, others including Brent Allen Saindon and Esra Ackan argue that a Jewish museum at the heart of Berlin would not be complete without the acknowledgement of the cultural contributions that were lost due to the Holocaust. It is contradictory, as a heterotopia should be, that perhaps the most important feature of this building is that which is not there.
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