Now the official museum of the German Armed Forces, the Dresden Museum of Military History has assumed varying and contradictory identities across its history. The building began its life as an armory, before becoming the Saxon Army Museum, followed by a stint as a Nazi military museum, then a Soviet and East German Museum. Uncertain of the institution’s role in the reunified state, the German government closed the museum and launched an international competition to redesign the structure. Studio Libeskind was selected as design architect for the extension in 2001, after presenting a bold design outside the competition guidelines. The…

Studio Libeskind designed this new museum in the heart of downtown San Francisco as an ode to dialogue, inserting its angled, glowing blue steel-clad structure within a historic red brick power plant from the 19th century. The building design is based on the two Hebrew letters spelling “L’Chaim,” which means “To Life.” Following the Jewish tradition, according to which letters are not mere signs, but substantial participants in the story they create, the ‘chet’ provides an overall continuity for the exhibition and educational spaces, and the ‘yud,’ with its 36 windows, serves as special exhibition, performance and event space. The…