Wohnblock aus präfabrizierten Elementen, Modell, 1957; Architekt: Israel Godovitz; Bildarchiv Zvi Efrat
Sanatorium Mivtachim, Zichron Yaacov, 1966-69; Architekten: Yaacov Rechter, Moshe Zarhy; Fotograf: Yitzhak Frenkel
Nuclear Research Reactor, Nahal Sorek, 1956–59; architects: Philip Johnson, Gideon Ziv; image archive of Zvi Efrat
Willem Sandberg: Foto-Collage, 1979; Ausstellungsplakat für das Israel Museum; Bildarchiv Zvi Efrat
23 OCTOBER 2011 - 22 JANUARY 2012
EXTENDED TO MONDAY 09 APRIL 2012
The emergence and development of the State of Israel represents a unique project in the history of Modernism. This not only pertains to the unparalleled scale and speed of development – Israel’s population has doubled ten times in the span of 50 years. Also exceptional are the ideological roots (a mixture of utopian, socialist, Biblical and Oriental concepts); the circumstances of the realization (protection of certain ethic/cultural groups left others to become refugees); and finally also the preference for architectural experiments: Israel became a laboratory of architecture after the Second World War, in particular for Structuralismus and Brutalism.
The development of the State of Israel is commonly believed to have been strongly shaped by improvisation, solutions born of necessity and speculative initiative. The exhibition The Israeli Project 2011 proves, however, that Israel entailed one of the most efficient and comprehensive architectural projects of Modernism – an experiment involving the construction of an artificial landscape as well as the building of dozens of new cities and hundreds of new rural settlements.