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Memorial architecture faces the special challenge of commemorating the absent; Jewish museums deal with an extra problematic history of high sensitivity. This paper examines and compares Daniel Libeskind’s architectural solutions to the cultural and political challenges in each of the three Jewish museums that he designed in Berlin, San Francisco and Copenhagen. The focus is on how the architecture institutionalizes the web of political relationships attached to the particular museum and delivers the museum’s message. It will be concluded that Libeskind has used space to address visitors bodily and affectively, control their behavior and help them see what the museums want them to see; the museums’ spatial existence can never really be independent of their contents. Light will be shed on the future of museum architecture: the trend is for museums designed for an expressive experience, involving movement, rather than the static enjoyment of single works of art.