Zvi Hecker - Projects

Projects

The early projects of Zvi Hecker, designed in partnership with Sharon and Neumann, have architectural qualities that were developed later in his career. The officer school (Bahad 1) was built to give a respectable living environment to soldiers in the Negev desert, and special emphasis was given to the large spaces between the structures, in order to form a micro-environment there, separating the people inside from the harsh desert outskirts. Raw concrete was chosen because it did not require constant maintenance and renovation in light of the strong sandy winds. About the school, Hecker said: "The location of the base has a special relevance to the vision of David Ben-Gurion. To build such an important school in a place which isn't the center of the country – in my opinion, that's the positive side of the State of Israel". The academy was supplemented later with a synagogue, whose form was complementary and contrasting. The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture says of the architect's approach to its design, "Eschewing the right angles of international modernism, he turned to crystalline geometry found in nature "

Another of the Zvi Hecker's projects in partnership, the Bat Yam City Hall shows the recurrence of geometrical invention that exists throughout his work. One architectural significance of the Bat Yam City Hall- its formal concept, is that it is an inverted pyramid. It is linked to other works of architecture such as Boston City Hall through this form, in addition to their program, similar materials, and time period. The building is patterned on a diagonal grid with concrete, which provides both its structure and aesthetics. The importance of this building was recognized in 1975 with perspective and section illustrations on a postage stamp in the Architecture in Israel series. As of 2003, Bat Yam City Hall was removed of its signature light shafts, rather than having them renovated. This was because of a perceived structural instability due to weathering over time. Of this removal Dr. Ami Ran wrote, "From an architectural standpoint, removing them is equivalent to dousing the Statue of Liberty's torch."

Among several projects for memorials, Zvi Hecker designed the solemn Page Memorial (1996) with Micha Ullmann and Eyal Weizmann. This site-specific memorial commemorates the Jewish community of Kreuzberg, and their Lindenstrasse synagogue which was designed in 1891 by architects Cremer & Wolffenstein. What was once one of the largest religious buildings in Berlin, with a capacity of 1800; was ruined by the Nazis in the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom. On the original floor plan, the benches of the synagogue were recreated in concrete, and where the bimah stood, trees are now planted. The designers conceived of the benches as sentences on the pages of the Talmud.