Human Environment Exercise: Structured Emotion

The Jewish Museum in Berlin is the first building I’ve ever been in where my emotions were affected by the structure.It looks like any other European museum on the outside; well, like two separate museums in fact. The one on the left has the appearance of a grand mansion that looks like it was picked up in the Italian countryside and dropped onto this city block. It is a large, snow white rectangle with rows of windows along the top and bottom. The burnt orange roof is a beautiful contrast, and the windows are all framed in ornamental stone designs.The building on the right is completely different. It is a rhombus shape with a taller peak sticking up in the middle. Its silvery, shiny surface makes the building look like it’s completely covered in tin foil. All of the cars and people flowing by are reflected in its surface. Long, horizontal strips of black break up the shiny silver, making it look as though someone attacked the tin foil surface, slashing it with a knife.

The museum looks like any other European museum on the inside as well. A long queue of people snakes ahead of me stopping at a tall reception desk where bitter looking men and women sit. They grab money, thrust tickets and scrutinize ID cards. Security personnel stand around, eyeing tourists and looking inside backpacks and camera cases.

It isn’t until I turn right, step onto the escalator, and step off at the bottom that the power of the museum and its message hits me with full force.The hallways are bare and sparse with stark white walls, made even starker by the strips of fluorescent lights, and shiny black floors. The halls are placed haphazardly and to make me even more uneasy, the floors are slanted every which way. I feel out of place, disoriented, and claustrophobic – almost as if I am trapped in an underground maze.

There are pictures, stories, and displays on the walls – tidbits of Jewish and World War II history - but I hardly notice as I am so fixated on my discomfort.It is completely silent. Up and down the hallways, men and women and stare up and down in a contemplative, almost frightened way. No one speaks, not even the children, who are normally antsy and quickly bored. Everything seems cold, metallic, and harsh. There is a feeling of sterility, like a hospital. If I was not so fascinated I probably would have turned and walked out by now.

I follow sunlight through a heavy metal door and outside I find only tall cement pillars placed in rows across and down in a mazelike structure. There may be sunlight out here, but I still feel lost and disoriented.Back inside I follow a crowd through another large metal door and enter a dark room. Once I walk in, turn around and lean against the wall I see that the room is an irregular shape – like a long triangle- which makes it feel very cramped. Looking up I see a tall, black tower stretching up to a small square of light. This is the only light source and once the door is shut behind us all we can see is this tiny bit of hope.

There is nothing but cold, dark metal and complete silence. No one in the tiny triangular room speaks; most just look up toward the square of light as if they’ll never see daylight again. I feel uneasy after being immersed in this silent blackness for only seconds.Relief floods over me as someone opens the door and we step back into the hallway. When I come to my senses and my mom comes into view, I realize that she’s crying.