“If You Can Make It Here, You Can Make It Anywhere”: Daniel Libeskind’s Tribute to New York

Classed as a world city, New York City has long been a bastion of economic, cultural and geopolitical influence, attracting a truly heterogenous mix of people from around the globe. It is this diversity of people, spatial typologies, creatures, cultures and foods, among other factors, that makes the city a most exciting yet difficult and highly competitive place to establish oneself. To help capture this phenomenon, watch renowned Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind offer a personal tribute on the hodgepodge microcosm that New York is:

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“The special thing about New York is that it’s a bit like a jungle,” argues Libeskind, highlighting its dangers, beauties, food variety, grittiness and, of course, its people.

Libeskind points out that what he loves about New York is its mix of people. “It’s so mixed; there is no typical New Yorker, in fact,” asserts the architect. He also extols the residents’ tolerance, the vastness of countries and cultures represented as well as socioeconomic divides between the rich and poor.

Libeskind closes out his tribute to New York with a nod to its verve: “If you take a very complicated microcosm of the whole world and collapse it into one little ball, I think you can find it here in this city.”