Berlin Museum gets Libeskind extension

The Jewish Museum in Berlin will get a new extension designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, who also designed the museum’s zigzag-shaped main exhibition hall and the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.

Museum spokeswoman Melanie von Plocki told the German news agency DAPD on Jan. 19 that a 19th-century market hall for flowers, across from the original museum, would be turned into exhibition space by fall 2011.

Construction will begin this summer. The cost is estimated at $14 million, to be funded by the federal government and private donations.

The first building, which opened in 2001, has become a tourist destination. It has been celebrated as a memorial to Jews in Germany; its jagged structure evokes a deconstructed Star of David, suggesting the dramatic break in history wrought by the Holocaust. — jta