DRESDEN, GERMANY – A modern wedge of glass, concrete and steel rips through a 135-year-old former armory building for the armies of Kaiser Wilhelm I, its silvery shimmer and stark lines contrasting sharply with the neoclassical building that it now bisects. American architect Daniel Libeskind knew when he won the bid to redesign Dresden’s Museum of Military History that he wanted to create a radical departure — something symbolic of Germany’s rigid authoritarian past giving way to the liberal democracy of today. While the modern addition contains more thematic exhibits with a focus on societal forces and the human impulses that lead to violence, the original building presents German military history in chronological order.

“He said from the beginning that we must transform the building,” said Libeskind’s project leader Jochen Klein, in a preview of the building Tuesday ahead of its official reopening to the public on Saturday. “We needed to give the old building a new meaning.”

The theme of contrast is central not only to the euro 62.5 million ($85 million) renovation that was started in 2004, but to the exhibitions themselves, which rethink the approach toward military history. There are vast arrays of militaria — some 10,500 artifacts from the crude weapons of the early 14th century, to the V2 rocket from World War II and a large collection of tanks, to items used by the Bundeswehr today in Afghanistan. But the perspective moves beyond the focus on heroes and battles.

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Dresden’s Museum of Military History redesigned by Architect Daniel Libeskind