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Uploaded 20/8/02
Imperial War Museum at Salford, Manchester
Daniel Libeskind's new building, an adjunct to
the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth, South London, is situated beside
the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford. Somehow this was a perfect
'stealth' affair. While the launch was crowded, very few of those
present had ventured Northwards from London, a capital which seems,
while it still deliberates on the pros and cons of the superb 'Spiral'
addition which Libeskind has designed for the Victoria and Albert
Museum, wholly oblivious to the masterwork presented here by Libeskind
to the clear approbation of War Museum curatorial staff. The new
building stands opposite Michael Wilford's Lowry Centre, and of
course the two could not be more different. However the Lowry was
awash with National Lottery funds, while the War Museum was denied
any of that. Indeed many of the War Museum North's abject opponents
sincerely hoped that this would scupper the canal-side dream. Failing
thus to achieve the £40 millions actually targeted, Libeskind achieved,
with great resourcefulness, a major miracle of economy and architectural
professionalism within a budget of £28.5 millions. He drastically
revised the materials schedule and, minus the auditorium (still
planned) and by converting the structure to steel and aluminium
cladding, maintained the dramatic formal composition with which
he had won the competition, virtually unchanged. An ironic, unwarranted
loss was the external landscaping and planting. And yet what transpires
from this further economy is the reality that such additions are
not missed - Libeskind's building creates its own unique and moving
landscape, hard textured by the wharf.
The underlying concept for the Imperial War Museum derived from
the pieces of a smashed globe. Leaving three major shards lying,
Libeskind observed how these pieces contained the poetry and the
pathos of war. He chose to interlock these shards dramatically,
if coincidentally. The individual forms were taken to symbolise
war at sea (the water shard), war in the air (the vertical air shard),
and war on the ground (the earth shard), Out of that chaotic incidence
Libeskind has fashioned this new container. The three shards offer
within, a key to the product of war, the resultant process of transformation
for civilisation. The Manchester skyline, itself once severely blitzed
in World War 2, is now punctured by the 55 metre-high vertical spire
of the air shard. At the base of this the entrance has been placed.
And from that point visitors can rise 29 metres up to survey Manchester's
surrounding land and water features, buffeted within the aluminium
structure as if in a warplane.
The main public galleries of the museum are housed on the first
floor level of the earth shard, a gently curving surface, with one
gallery for special short-term exhibitions and the other housing
the permanent exhibition. The third, lower slung 'water shard' overlooks
the canal and contains a restaurant and offices, in prime position,
looking over the quite different architecture of the Lowry Centre.
Libeskind would like to say that he builds in a world of order and
disorder - he seeks here to explore the constant state of the "in-between",
given the spirit of democratic openness, plurality, and potential.
An outstandingly talented musician before he became a composer,
he seeks references within the work of contemporary composers, such
as Schoenberg and John Cage. themselves building on such values.
The shards of the museum now gleam in the northern light, glinting
in aluminium splendour (and this very much a material developed
in wartime expediency). Magically, the building 'sings in the rain'
as water flashes down its surfaces, glistening in any dull sky.
From the quayside entrance this building is seen at its very best,
especially if the visitor walks in across the new bridge from the
Lowry Centre. A clever move has been to locate a small grey naval
vessel adjacently to the Museum. Like a seagoing vessel the Museum
itself channels canal water through pipes sunken in the floor, under
the curving first floor. This is sustainability applied to the cooling
system, a typical Libeskind touch that converts raw technology into
poetry.
Museums are about memory, and the indebtedness of civilisations,
through readily accessible, authentic artefacts as relics of the
archaeology of war, both private and personal, and collective and
communal in their significance today. The teamwork of architects
and curators has enabled the central space to become something of
a mediatheque in maximising the projection potential of the internal
walls and spaces. The ancillary spaces are adorned with carefully
selected key memorabilia. A US Marine Corps Harrier is suspended
in one corner: a Soviet T34 tank looms: and around the corner, as
if to symbolise the aftermath of war, a diminutive and almost comical
'Trabi' uniform peoples' car is lodged tentatively, itself soon
to become extinct through capitalism. Memory is plumbed more deeply
by the "button-push" accessible Time Stacks; here trays of selected
objects appear in rotation vertically, behind glass in the traditional
way. This material comes thematically ordered. At fixed times of
day, curatorial staff assist visitors actually to touch and handle
such objects and documents. This system might also be transferable
to Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin, which has no such technical
facility.
Chronology is greatly clarified for visitors circulating around
the Museum in the conventional manner by a visible mural 'Time-Line"
which creates a kind of spinal pathway through the various fixed
displays, treating distinct periods of the past century. Complementary
to this are the silos which adorn the towering exhibition spaces.
Such subjects as experience of War, as Science, Technology and War,
or the Legacy of War, are well-crafted set-pieces in the great curatorial
tradition, often seemingly archaeological in the presentation of
the object, yet redolent of the great tide of war as it has swept
across countries, scything its swathes through the history of different
nations. And above all, the 'Air Shard' looms, accessible in an
open lift as if moving through a structural frame more akin to a
biplane or a Wellington bomber's fuselage.
This building is a great triumph for the architect, Daniel Libeskind,
and for past and present directors and curators of the Imperial
War Museum. Its Board should be congratulated on their own vision
and determination in bringing this masterwork to fruition, on time,
and also within budget.
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