Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanities

Programs & Initiatives

Medal for Distinguished Contributions to the Arts and Humanities

Daniel Libeskind, Spring 2007

Daniel Libeskind is an international figure in architectural practice and urban design. He was born in Poland and, after some years in Israel, came to the United States in 1965. Mr. Libeskind first gained international prominence for his design of the Jewish Museum in Berlin (1989). Subsequently, he has designed museums, concert halls, and other major cultural institutions around the world. He has held professorial chairs at several universities – University of Toronto, University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, and Universität Karlsruhe – and he has five honorary doctorates. Among his numerous awards are the 2003 Torch of Honor Award for furthering immigrant and human rights, the Hiroshima Art Prize for work promoting peace, and the Berlin Cultural Prize. In 2004 he was appointed the first Cultural Ambassador for Architecture by the U.S. State Department.

Medal Ceremony Laudatio, read by Dr. Yvonne Gaudelius, Interim Dean, College of Arts and Architecture

On behalf of the Pennsylvania State University I am honored to present Mr. Daniel Libeskind the Institute for the Arts and Humanities “Medal for Distinguished Contributions to the Arts and Humanities.”

Architect of some of the most innovative and important buildings of our times – among them the Jewish Museum of Berlin, the Danish Jewish Museum, the British Imperial War Museum, the Denver Art Museum, and the 9/11 memorial “Memoria e Luce” in Italy – Daniel Libeskind’s buildings have helped define the spaces that shape our worlds and our histories, and in doing so they have helped to enlarge our own imaginations. His buildings are not only memorable; they also often stand as monuments to memory itself. “Memory and Light” is the name of his memorial for 9/11, but it could also stand as the name for his work as a whole which opens spaces for memory as well as light. Mr. Libeskind’s own words remind us just how much architecture transcends a simple concern with structures: “A building can be experienced as an unfinished journey. It can awaken our desires, propose imaginary conclusions. It is not about form, image or text, but about the experience which is not to be simulated. A building can awaken us to the fact that it has never been anything more than a huge question mark.” It is no surprise then that Mr. Libeskind’s buildings, his critical writings, and his teaching have done much to change the discourse of architecture today.

Mr. Libeskind has won numerous awards and has been honored by many universities. He has held endowed chairs at Yale, Toronto, Chicago, Harvard, Karlsruhe, and the University of Pennsylvania. He has honorary doctorates from the University of Essex in England, the Humboldt University of Berlin, DePaul University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Edinburgh. He is the recipient of several awards, among them the 2001 Hiroshima Art Prize for work that promotes international understanding and peace, the 2000 Goethe Medallion for Contributions to Culture, and the American Academy Arts and Letters Award for Architecture.

Daniel Libeskind’s work has opened spaces – for living and working, but also for memory and history – that have enriched our world. He has brought great vitality and imagination to thinking through how it is that we can best inhabit those spaces. For all of these reasons, and many more, I am pleased to present Mr. Daniel Libeskind with the 2007 “Medal for Distinguished Contributions to the Arts and Humanities.”