Dimensions
158 x 241 x 31mm
'The Foundations Of Optimism' is a book about the adventure life can offer each of us if we seize it, and about the powerful forces of tragedy, memory and hope.
For Daniel Libeskind, life's adventure has been through architecture, which he has found has the power to reshape human experience. Although often relating to the past, his buildings are about the future.
Born in communist Poland to Jewish Holocaust survivors, Daniel Libeskind - a gifted musician as a child - later became an adopted son of New York. Now one of the world's foremost architects, he has conceived the Master Plan for the World Trade Center reconstruction.
This memoir of one man's journey brings together history, personal experience, our physical environment and a fresh international vision. It is part autobiography, part personal adventure, part thought-filled reflection on the meaning of the city and of building design after the attacks on New York. It illustrates and explains the process by which Libeskind has been able to realise his designs as buildings in different countries around the world, and the evolution of his methods and style, from his school days as a child of poor immigrants and through the decades he spent teaching. Although his approach is avant-garde, all who have experienced his buildings know their power and appreciate his vision.
The world is painfully aware of the World Trace Center tragedy; here is a book of ideas that could form the germ of our emotional, creative and practical response to it - a response that could have truly positive implications for humanity.
