Breaking Ground: Adventures in Life and Architecture

Less a memoir than a portrait of a life as told through architecture, Libeskind's book traces his past and his numerous project commissions, including his most recent and renowned contribution to the design of the new World Trade Center. Libeskind sometimes skimps on historical detail, personal or otherwise, in favor of discussing his architectural preferences. However, tales from his youth in post-World War II Poland and engaging anecdotes about his strong-willed parents, who survived Soviet death camps, are interspersed throughout. For Libeskind, everything relates to architecture, and the book is filled with his beliefs about what good architecture should be and what inspires him. The book also features Libeskind's many clashes with and strong opinions about other buildings, architects and developers; rightly or not, he often casts himself as a righteous, innovative David facing stodgy, wrongheaded Goliath, and he doesn't hesitate to paint unflattering portraits of the Goliaths he has come up against. This is especially true in the final chapters, which detail the melodramatic quarrels he had with WTC site developer Larry Silverstein and Silverstein's favored architectural firm. Libeskind's enthusiastic, earnest prose will be familiar to anyone who has read his WTC proposal; he believes fervently in the importance of symbols, going so far as to say ""some days I suspect that's what people in Israel are really fighting over--not the territory, but the light."" The WTC project has made Libeskind as much a household name as any architect could wish for, and with work on the site underway (he aptly describes it as organ replacement surgery ""while keeping a network of veins and arteries pumping""), even lay readers may find this an intriguing introduction to the architect's ideas and influences. 32 pages of photos.