Daniel Libeskind is a renowned international figure in architectural practice and urban design. He is well-known for introducing a new critical discourse into architecture and for his multidisciplinary approach. His practice includes major cultural andpublic institutions, commercial projects such as shopping centers and department stores, large-scale master planning projects, stage design, installations and exhibitions.Born in postwar Poland in 1946, Daniel Libeskind became an American citizen in 1965. He studied music in Israel (on the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship) and performed in New York City as a virtuoso. He left music tostudy architecture receiving his professional architectural degree at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1970 in New York City and a postgraduate degree in History and Theory of Architecture at the School of Comparative Studies at Essex University in 1972.
His practice in architecture began with the building of the Jewish Museum Berlin, a competition he won in 1989. The museum opened to great critical acclaim in September 2001. His museum for the city of Osnabrück, Germany, the Felix Nussbaum Museum, opened in July 1998. And in July 2002, the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester was opened to the public. In February 2003, he won the competition and commission for the most well-known building project worldwide: the World Trade Center Ground Zero Site. InJuly 2004 the foundation was laid for this modified project. The Graduate Student Centre at the London Metropolitan University and the Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen opened in 2004. The opening of the Maurice Wohl Center at the Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv followed in October 2005. In October 2006, the Extension to the Denver Art Museum added another example to his spectacular museum buildings. For the Jewish Museum Berlin he designed the Glass Courtyard, which opened in autumn 2007.
