After years of delay, the Jewish Contemporary Museum opened to the public Sunday in San Francisco, and it is nothing anyone expected.

When they hear about a Jewish museum, people usually expect a dark atmosphere, focused on the tragedies of the past, but the founders of this new museum decided to offer a completely different perspective to visitors.

The modern building does not contain permanent space referring to the Holocaust or the genealogy of the Jewish diaspora. The museum focuses on the future and asks the Jewish people to show who they are now.

"This is a museum of life," Director Connie Wolf said, as quoted by Reuters. "It's not that we aren't embracing the Holocaust, that incredibly important and pivotal moment in world history. We just always want to be thinking about other issues as well."

To make this very clear, the building’s shape, designed by famous architect Daniel Libeskind, resembles two letters in the Yiddish world for “life.” Libeskind is the architect who also designed the Jewish museum in Berlin. He declared he was excited to have the freedom of creating a “happy” site, one that does not engender horror or sadness.

Libeskind, who is also the designer of the World Trade Center Memorial in New York, said that “despite all the things that have happened, life is about celebrating.”

A beautiful example of what one can find in the museum is a room where joyful children can find out about William Steig, the Jewish cartoonist who created the famous and much loved cartoon character Shrek.

The museum, which is shaped like a big blue cube made of stainless-steel plates, is supposed to be equally enjoyed by people of all ages, who come from various backgrounds. It will offer a lot of space for the visual, performing and media arts. Although it was just open, it is considered to have become an instant landmark of the city.