Wikipedia –
“The Jewish Museum Berlin (Jüdisches Museum Berlin), in Berlin, Germany, covers two millennia of German Jewish history. World–renowned architect Daniel Libeskind designed the museum, which opened to the public in 2001. The museum was one of the first buildings designed after German reunification.
Princeton professor W. Michael Blumenthal, who was born near Berlin and was later President Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of the Treasury, has been the director of the museum since December 1997.
The original Jewish Museum in Berlin was founded on Oranienburger Straße in 1933. The Nazi regime closed it in 1938, and it wasn’t until 1975 that an “Association for a Jewish Museum” formed to resurrect the old museum. After an exhibition on Jewish history opened there in 1978, the Berlin Museum, which chronicled the city’s history, established a Jewish Department. Soon thereafter, discussions for constructing a new museum dedicated to Jewish history in Berlin began.
In 1989, the Berlin government announced an anonymous competition for the new museum’s design. A year later, Daniel Libeskind’s design was chosen for the commission for what was then planned as a “Jewish Department” for the Berlin Museum. While other entrants proposed cool, neutral spaces, Libeskind offered a radical, zigzag design, which earned the nickname “Blitz.” Construction on the new extension to the Berlin Museum began in November 1992.…
Libeskind, a musician himself, took inspiration from music and considered the museum the final act of Arnold Schoenberg’s unfinished opera, Moses und Aron…”
Wikipedia Online, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Museum_Berlin (accessed July 13, 2009)