Contemporary Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind – The Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) San Francisco California – USA, 2006

The Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) is a museum located in San Francisco, at 736 Mission Street at Yerba Buena Lane in the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood.
The museum, which was founded in 1984, is located in the historic Jessie Street Substation, which was restored and its interior redesigned by Daniel Libeskind, along with the addition of a cube structure; the new museum opened in 2008.
The museum's main building is the former Pacific Gas & Electric Jessie Street Substation, which was originally built in 1881 and rebuilt in 1907 by Willis Polk after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 6, 1974.

Daniel Libeskind designed the substation's new 5.900-square-meter interior, as well as a new deconstructivist cubic addition that extends it. The new museum was completed in 2008

Daniel Libeskind's Deconstructivist Addition 
The building’s tilted dark blue stainless steel cube, constructed by the A. Zahner Company, splits into the old brick of the substation, making visible the relationship between the new and the old. Libeskind’s design retains the distinctive features of the old Polk building, including the brick facade, trusses and skylights. Thirty-six diamond-shaped windows illuminate the top floor of the metal cube, known as “Yud,” which houses sound and performance exhibits. The other section of the museum, a tilted rectangle known as “Chet,” houses the narrow lobby, an education center and part of an upper-floor gallery.
The building also houses a multipurpose event space, an auditorium, Wise Sons Deli, and a retail store.