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U.S. Department of State Names Daniel Libeskind First Cultural Ambassador for Architecture

CultureConnect Builds Bridges of Understanding Among Youth Around the World

Internationally renowned architect Daniel Libeskind has been appointed the U.S. Department of State's first Cultural Ambassador for Architecture under the U.S. Department of State's CultureConnect initiative - a program designed to increase understanding among young people around the world.

As Cultural Ambassador, Mr. Libeskind recently traveled to Tunisia where he met with young architects, university students and professors. He also addressed a standing-room-only crowd at The Tunisian School of Architecture and Design and attended a Memorial Day service at the American Cemetery in Tunis, where he met with the Tunisian Minister of Higher Education and spoke with young Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

During his trip, Mr. Libeskind also stopped in Padua, Italy, where he is designing a 9/11 Memorial, integrating a piece of the World Trade Center given to the government of Italy by the United States.

Mr. Libeskind is an internationally renowned figure in architecture and design whose stunning conceptualization of a new world trade center site was selected as the winner of the International Design Competition. His visionary designs have received world-wide critical acclaim with buildings such as the Jewish Museum Berlin, the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, and the Felix Nussbaum Museum in Onsabrueck, becoming some of the world's most visited sites.

Born in 1946 in postwar Poland, Mr. Libeskind immigrated to the United States at age thirteen and became a United States citizen in 1965. A child musical prodigy, Mr. Libeskind left music to study architecture, receiving his professional architectural degree from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1970 and a post graduate degree in History and Theory of Architecture at the School of Comparative Studies at Essex University in England in 1972. He was also a senior Fulbright professor in Helsinki.

Mr. Libeskind is currently designing and constructing buildings in the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Switzerland, Japan, Spain, Israel, Mexico, Korea, Germany and Hong Kong, China. His firm, Studio Daniel Libeskind, is located across from the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan, with additional offices in Denver, San Francisco, Toronto, Zurich and Tel Aviv.

Under the supervision of Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Patricia S. Harrison, CultureConnect draws on the talents of "ambassadors" and "envoys" from diverse backgrounds including the arts, business, sports, government, politics, and education, to interact with young audiences around the world through clinics, performances, coaching sessions, motivational speeches, master classes, and leadership training. The program seeks to increase opportunities for young people through exchange programs and school-to-school initiatives, while also helping countries to strengthen their own cultural institutions and build sustainable relationships with American individuals and institutions.

CultureConnect Ambassadors for 2003-2004 include such luminaries as Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis, Frank McCourt, and Denyce Graves.

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