17. Juli. 2010

Heute, wir gegen nachh der Jewish Museum.

I immediate noticed the architecture of the building which resembled a twisted zig zag. The unique nature carried into the interior as sloped entries, beveled staircases, and hidden exhibits disorient each visitor. Everything was a little off, parts of the floor were raised and there was no sense of order or consistency. Cut out windows were paired in odd numbers or angled in all directions against the walls.

I was upset that the one exhibit I wanted to see was closed, you could only view it from a splice of overlooking window on the second floor. Beneath is an actual "void" in the building, it's 66 feet tall and inside lay over 10,000 thousand iron faces that are scattered like leaves. The gathering appears thick and stretches from one side of the crevace to the other. This is meant to remind the public of Holocaust victims.

check it out: http://www.kadishman.com/works/shalechet/Articles/Ulrich_Schneider/

It’s a bizarre exhibit really, One can choose to walk across it. I secretly wanted to feel the dissonance between the crush beneath my feet and the metals clanging together as I walked. I think it is meant to be an exercise of separating mind and body. And through that stretch of the mind you are forced to regoncile with the noise and the touch while separating the faces with the real people that suffered. I thought it would be neat to experience, although I’m not sure if I would have been able to step foot into the pile. I may have waited for a group of children to innocently stomp into the ‘fun exhibit’ while I’d sit back and sort through my emotions without really stepping on their faces. Without really diving in. I notice that sometimes I like to put anything too painful at arms length. Remember the past and learn to celebrate the future. But its all so much more than that. Like so many communities, cities, countries, how do you choose: pick up the pieces, rebuilt, or preserve the past?

How do the people of Dresden feel about rebuilding the church after the bombing? Is it for the church? The Lord? the community? The nation? If you put a band aid on a scar, is it still a scar? Or even the city of Berlin being known as “the city of cranes,” is evolution a good thing? I’m sure opinions vary.

But is there really any other choice?

It makes me think of my four year home of Waco- restoring downtown has been beneficial and uplifting to the community after the flood of….

In such an instance I am in favor of revitalization and progress. But I wonder how many people see it differently. And where is the line drawn? Waco’s natural disaster relief is widely appreciated but the bombing of the Church of Dresden is controversial? It’s all so interesting.

Interesting fact:

-At a jewish wedding it is customary to break glass under the grooms foot (obviously)

but did you know some people use light bulb instead of a glass?

It is much easier to break and leads to less embarrassment when the groom cannot break it with his foot. Isnt that funny?

I wonder if there is a statistic showing the divorce rate between light bulb couples or glass couples….