( CNN ) -- Daniel Libeskind , the Polish-American architect responsible for the World Trade Center site 's redevelopment , says his favorite building is the Military History Museum in Dresden , Germany . Originally an armory for Kaiser Wilhelm I and subsequently under Nazi and Soviet control , the Bundeswehr 's main military museum survived the 1945 bombing of Dresden due to its location on the city 's outskirts . `` It is an interesting project for me , '' says Libeskind , `` because now it is a museum of modern democratic Germany . How to transform it ? How to create a new sense of what it means to have a military in a democracy which is controlled by the citizens ? '' In Libeskind 's $ 85 million redesign , completed in 2011 , a huge wedge of concrete and steel scythes through the stone , columned building , to create something he describes as `` both disruptive of the old , but [ that ] also gives you a sense of how we have changed our thinking . '' Watch Great Buildings on CNN 's Connect the World . Born in Poland , raised under Communist regimes and the child of Holocaust survivors , Libeskind says the concept underpinning his design `` was n't something that I had to research in libraries . '' The dramatic shard , which was constructed as the building was also being restored , helps to reorient the museum 's purpose . Libeskind says the new space offers visitors a chance to question `` why people participate in and organize violence , why they conform to totalitarian thoughts . '' View a hi-res gallery of Libekind 's 'Great Buildings ' `` This space is not for weapons . It 's to navigate between the horizontal world of history and the vertical world of human aspiration and understanding . '' `` I wanted people to feel that sense of displacement , that space of catastrophe , '' he says . `` It 's not just about weapons and rockets and tanks , it 's about people 's decisions , and how people view the world . '' The building Libeskind most wishes he 'd designed is one completely at odds with its surrounds -- the Eiffel Tower , which looms over Paris ' uniformly mid-rise cityscape . `` It 's a building with no function , that has no program , '' Libeskind says . `` It 's completely uncharacteristic of Paris , and yet it 's such a fantastic building . Today it 's one of the world 's most recognizable and most-visited monuments but in its day , the tower , erected for the 1889 World 's Fair , was a controversial emblem of industrialization . Libeskind admires the daring of its design , which was innovative for its time , and the risks its engineers took -- `` the technology had never really been used . There is no guarantee how it would work , '' he notes -- but he also admires its poetry . `` It does n't mimic anything . It 's original . It has a spirit to it , a spirit of the unknown . And when you go see it , you still wonder , what the hell is this thing ? How was it built ? '' `` That defines for me what good architecture is : It 's not a formula . It 's not the pretty facade of the building . It 's how the building transforms the city . It 's changed how people view Paris . '' `` All the great artists , composers and politicians hated that building . They wanted to tear it down . They thought it was the ugliest , stupidest thing . But , in the long run , it became the most beloved and most symbolic building of France , of Paris , of Europe . '' Libeskind 's Dresden museum was also criticized but , he says , he never doubted it . `` Once you hit on the right idea , it 's not a matter of compromising . Of course , you have to be flexible to work it out , but the big idea has to be so strong , it has to go through fire and still emerge exactly how you wanted it to be . '' `` If people enjoy it , the building becomes part of the city , and then people have a different idea of the city . It can have a big role in changing what the world looks like to us . ''
Daniel Libeskind 's redesign of the Military History Museum in Dresden is his favorite work to date . The new museum will be a more modern version than its predecessor, which was built between 1900 and 1910 by architect Paul Schultze. it 's about people 's decisions and how people view the world , '' Libeskind says . Polish-born architect wishes he had designed the Eiffel Tower , in Paris . `` It 's completely uncharacteristic of Paris , and yet it 's such a fantastic building , '' he says .