To provide meaningful architecture is not to parody history but to articulate it

I've just come back from three days in Berlin, where I was able to find time before coming home to visit the Jüdisches Museum. Having seen an excellent documentary about the architect Daniel Libeskind on BBC Four last week (still available for download) and with the museum itself featured in the Guardian's Great Modern Buildings series, it was a building and a museum that I very much wanted to visit. It didn't disappoint - whilst the design is deliberately disorienting, particularly with the entrance through the intersecting axes of Holocaust, Exile and Continuity, the wonderful use of space and light means this complements rather than detracts from the museum's main collection. Highly recommended.


I've also noted that the Vatican is tomorrow, at the behest of a German Pope, beatifying Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian peasant who refused to fight for the Third Reich in an unjust war. He knew that the penalty was death. An inspiring story.


Finally, a quick plug for Of Course, I Could Be Wrong. The Mad Priest is one of the more entertaining bloggers I've read in recent months (and the man does have a very good taste in music). I just wonder, given the frequency with which he posts, how much his parishioners actually see him.