If it seemed that any possible word on Israeli Modernism had already been said – in research, Bauhaus festivals, conservation, nostalgia or criticism – think again. The Shenkar College of Engineering & Design proved at a recent International Conference organized by the Shenkar Forum for Culture and Society that Modernism is alive and kicking – more than ever before – and open for debate.
Participants at the conference included Israeli researchers, Czech architects and British researchers who had played a leading role in the "Modernism" exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The Conference was organized and chaired by Professor Micha Levin, Professor Larry Abramson and Dr. Oded Heilbronner all senior faculty members of the Faculty of Design at Shenkar and Arch. Shraga Kirshner, Head of the Department of Interior Building and Environment Design.
Professor Levin stated that "the conference was an opportunity to teach Israeli Modernism to the guest researchers from abroad who may not be acquainted with it in spite of international exposure". Levin also said that during these key periods, European and American modernism, each in its turn, inspired artists and cultural movements in the pre-state Yishuv (settlement) and in the State of Israel, and ultimately, after a struggle, became an integral and dominant part of the Israeli cultural canon. Therefore, the particular Israeli case was examined from a broad international perspective of the complex reciprocal relations between nationalism and modernism.
Among those coming to the conference from overseas were leaders of the very successful "Modernism: Designing a New World" exhibition, which displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London during Spring and Summer of 2006: Mr. Christopher Wilk, the curator of the exhibition; Professor Tim Benton from the Open University in London; and Mr. David Crowley of the Royal College of Art, London. The three guests are the authors of the catalog-book of the "Modernism: Designing a New World" exhibition.
Top architects from the Czech Republic also participated in the conference, including Petr Pelčák, Professor Vladimir Slapeta, Vlado Milunić and Arch. Petr Hlaváček, who lectured on the development of modernism in architecture in the Czech cities of Prague and Brno.
The conference was accompanied by two exhibitions - "There's No Button without a Buttonhole - Modernism in Fashion" and "Jewish Architects and Modernism in Czechoslovakia between the Two World Wars", at the Architects' House, Jaffa.
Amongst the projects displayed in the exhibition in Jaffa was a project by the Architect Alfred Neuman who was a leading figure in the architectural avant-garde movement in Israel in the 1960's and the legendary teacher of the Israeli architects, Zvi Hecker and Eldad Sharon.
