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The Academic. The Artist. The Man.

Renaissance man, a polyhistor – a common description of a person who has achieved a great level of expertise in all of the interdisciplinary interests they pursue. Perhaps the most famous and greatest polyhistor of all times was Leonardo da Vinci. The outstanding Italian devoted his life to painting, engineering, anatomic studies and other fields of science, achieving excellence in each. However, it would be a mistake to think that such universal masters lived only in ancient times. Admittedly, Renaissance people don’t come to the world very often, but fortunately they do not belong to the past.

Daniel Libeskind was born in Łódź, Poland, in 1946. When he was 11, he moved with his family to Israel – first to Kibbutz Gvat and then to Tel Aviv, where he went to a music school. However, his passion for music started much earlier – already in 1953 he performed on Polish Television as a young and very talented accordion virtuoso. Six years later, Libeskind won a prestigious America Israel Cultural Foundation scholarship and played alongside the great Itzhak Perlman. However, despite his numerous successes, it was not music that became the field in which Libeskind’s talent flourished in full.

In 1959, the Libeskinds decided to emigrate again, this time to the United States. The family settled down in Bronx, New York, where two events took place which had an overwhelming influence on the teenager. He went to Bronx High School of Science and completed it in 1965.

Fascinated by the grandeur of city, he decided to embark on a new career. In 1970, he received his professional degree from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science. This marked the beginning of a true career of one of the greatest architects of modern times. Since the 70s, Libeskind has designed tens of unique buildings, including the iconic Jewish Museum in Berlin, Imperial War Museum North in Manchester or the residential tower ZŁOTA 44. He also became an academic lecturer, architectural theorist, interior designer and even a set designer. To realise his goals, he founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989. His work was recognised multiple times – he won three international RIBA awards, Goethe Medal, an award from Time Magazine and many other prestigious accolades. In 2001, he became the first architect to be awarded the Hiroshima Art Prize. In 2004, Daniel Libeskind became a honorary member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.

13 March 2017 was the day of the grand opening of one of Daniel Libeskind’s flagship projects – residential tower ZŁOTA 44. The event was attend by the architect himself, who personally cut the ribbon. At the same day, an exhibition of Libeskind’s drawings took place in the building’s lobby. This vernissage was a perfect exemplification of his unique style of work.