A Mall With Edge
Jan 1, 2003 12:00 PM
Best known for his design of the Jewish Museum Berlin, architect Daniel Libeskind is going shopping.
Libeskind is designing WESTside in West Bern, Switzerland. When completed in 2006, it will comprise 335,000 square feet of retail, a 170-room hotel, a 220,000-square-foot water park, 20 restaurants and a 10-screen theater. Developer MIGROS expects 3.5 million visitors annually.
Libeskind's deconstructivist architecture has been lauded for memorializing tragedy. (He was recently chosen to help redesign the World Trade Center. See page 13.) But many of his design tropes, such as crisscrossing structural beams, resurface at WESTside. Take a look. Does it bring high design to the masses? Or condemn shopping as tragic? You decide.
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