Ball on ice on a lake in a town

La porte

 

La porte donnait sur le ciel au prolongement d’un grand escalier,

Elle donnait droit sur le ciel comme une espérance certaine.

Je ne pouvais de là où j’étais voir le nombre de ceux qui l’avaient franchie

Mais je pouvais voir à l’usure des marches que nous étions nombreux.

 

En effet, nous étions tous en train de la franchir cette même porte.

Celle qui mène vers demain inéluctablement.

Je me posais quelques questions essentielles

Et après ? comment ? pourquoi ? qui retrouverai-je ?

 

Une forme de sérénité devant ce bleu si parfait

Me donnait confiance que ce demain serait joyeux

Différent mais apaisé assurément.

Pour autant, je n’étais pas pressée de monter les marches

 

Mais je ne pouvais pas à l’approche de cette porte

Me poser aucune question !!

 

Je me souvenais de mon père qui disait que l’aujourd’hui servait à choisir son éternité

En repensant au jardin d’Eden, où Dieu venait rendre visite en toute « amitié » à ce couple à la tombée de la nuit

Je me disais que ce merveilleux jardin était une promesse,

Que la visite du soir avec ce Dieu qui vient prendre des nouvelles serait vraiment une forme de Paradis.

 

Je repensais à la terre, à ce que nous en avions fait,

Les incendies violents qui ravagent nos étés sur la planète (la Grèce…)

Les répressions violentes face à des moines et à un peuple tranquille (Rangoon…)

Nos pollutions, nos aberrations, nos adultères moraux et physiques, nos comportements absurdes…

 

Où est la paix ? où est la sérénité ?

La porte donnait sur le ciel en prolongement du grand escalier et s’ouvrait sur l’espérance……

 

Turquoise Bleue

 

IMG_2405.jpg

 

Believing only what one "sees": this prejudice, as crude as it is common, leads us to insert a parenthesis. Wanting to believe only what they see, scientists condemn themselves to seeing only what they believe; logic for them is their desire not to see what they do not want to believe. Scientism in fact is less interested in the real in itself (which necessarily goes beyond our limitations) than in what is non-contradictory, in what is logical therefore, or more precisely, in what is empirically logical; thus in what is logical de facto according to a given experience, and not in what is logical de jure in accordance with the nature of things.

 

In reality the "planimetric" recording of perceptions and the elimination of the apparently contradictory only too often gives the measure of a given ignorance, even of a given stupidity; the pedants of "exact science" are moreover incapable of evaluating what is implied by the existential paradoxes in which we live, beginning with the phenomenon, contradictory in practice, of subjectivity.

 

Subjectivity is intrinsically unique while being extrinsically multiple; now if the spectacle of a host of subjectivities other than our own causes us no great perplexity, how shall it be explained "scientifically" (that is, avoiding or eliminating all contradiction) the fact that "I alone" am "I"? So-called "exact" science can find no reason whatever for this apparent absurdity, any more than it can for that other logical and empirical contradiction which is the limitlessness of space, time and the other existential categories.

 

Whether we like it or not we live surrounded by mysteries, which logically and existentially lead us towards transcendence.

 

Even if the "scientists" could observe the non-contradiction of all possible objective phenomena, there still would remain the contradictory enigma of the scission between the objective universe and the observing subject, not to speak of the "scientifically" insoluble problem of that flagrant contradiction which is the empirical uniqueness of a particular subject, to which problem we have just alluded; and even if we limit ourselves to the objective world, whose limitlessness precisely constitutes a contradiction since it is inconceivable according to empirical logic, how can we believe for an instant that the day will finally come when we can put it into a homogeneous and exhaustive system?

 

And how can we fail to see the fundamental and inevitable contradiction between scientistic logic-which is moreover

intrinsically deficient since it lacks sufficient data- and the infinity and complexity of the real, which scientism sets itself out to explore, to exhaust and to catalog?

 

The fundamental contradiction of scientism is to want to explain the real without the help of that first science which is metaphysics, hence not to know that only the science of the Absolute gives a meaning and a discipline to the science of the relative; and not to know at the same stroke that the science of the relative, when it is deprived of this help, can only lead to suicide, beginning with that of the intelligence, then with that of the human, and in the end, with that of humanity.

 

The absurdity of scientism is the contradiction between the finite and the Infinite, that is to say, the impossibility of reducing the latter to the former, and the incapacity to integrate the former into the latter; and also the inability to

understand that an erudition which cuts itself off from initial Unity can lead only to the innumerable, hence to the indefinite, to shattering and to nothingness.

 

If therefore the scientific method, or the conceptual system (die Weltanschauung) resulting from it, claims to have the privilege of excluding contradictions, it goes without saying that it accuses methods or systems which in its opinion are extrascientific of the defect of accepting what is contradictory; as if there could exist a human and traditional thoutht which accepts the contradictory de Jure and not only de facto, and as if what is contradictory in religion (supposing that it is not merely in the minds of the scientists) did not imply the consciousness of an underlying non-contradiction, known by God alone!

 

What is the significance of the theological opinion that the human mind has limits, and what is the meaning of the mysteries inasmuch as they are supposed to transcend reason, if not that man is incapable of perceiving the total and homogeneous reality behind the contradictions where his short-sightedness stops? Recourse to the Divine authority of Revelation means nothing else but that, and this is so evident that one would like to excuse oneself for pointing

it out.

 

The man who wishes to know the visible (to know it both in entirety and in depth) is obliged for that very reason to know the Invisible, on pain of absurdity and ineffectualness; to know it according to the principles which the very nature of the Invisible imposes on the human mind; hence to know it by being aware that the solution to the contradictions of the objective world is found only in the transpersonal essence of the subject, namely in the pure Intellect.

 

Besides - and this is another question altogether - how can the adepts of a scientism which sets out to reduce total Reality to a clockwork fail to see that the absurd (not, this time, insofar as it is simply an appearance of the unknown, but insofar as it is a manifestation of the indefinite and thereby of the unintelligible in itself), how can they fail to see that this cosmic absurdity is an integral part of the mirrorings of Maya and hence of the economy of the Universe?

 

One of the most difficult things there is morally is to concede the metaphysical right of existence to what is existentially absurd; not in theory alone, but on concrete contact with absurdity, which is almost the victory over the dragon. Now before wishing to abolish the absurd that is merely apparent, it is necessary to acknowledge the ineluctable presence of the absurd as such, which could not possibly be reabsorbed into the intelligible save in its function of being a necessary element in the equilibrium of things.

 

For Reality does not limit itself to revealing its aspects of geometry. It also likes to conceal itself and to play hide-and-seek; it would be astonishing if it consented to unveil itself totally to mathematical minds; if it could consent to this it would not be Maya.

 

Man is contingent and he is condemned to contingency, and contingency implies by definition the insoluble and the absurd.

 

Everything here is a question of causality: there are phenomena which seem absurd to us as long as we are ignorant of their causes, or because we are ignorant of them; and there are other phenomena which are absurd in themselves and which have no other cause than the cosmic necessity for that which has no necessity.

 

Likewise there are possibilities which have no function other than to manifest the impossible, to the extent precisely that that is still possible; and it is possible at least in a symbolic way, which is sufficiently clear to manifest the intention of impossibility or absurdity.

 

Frithjof Schuon

When faced with the existential question to break a rule or not, the points system can be a useful tool to help analyze if you should take the picture. Take this shot for example. It loses points for the two trailing units. OTOH, the lead unit is clean and only mildly offensive, and the clouds are nice. Some consideration must also be given to the angle of the sun. Then there are subjective measures, such as the ETTS factor, would it have been better in the past, or will it be better in the future? What is the shooter thinking, and what's for lunch? In sum, the PAR or points above replacement for this shot is - 1. This shot is crap.

Burned Polaroids about existential vacuum many of us are existing in.

Life in the slow lane Florida Keys

Photo of the Day EarthShots.org

July 13th 2010

www.earthshots.org/2010/07/man-on-wire-by-santos2046/

Holistic design is a design approach which sees a design as an interconnected whole that is part of the larger world. It goes beyond problem solving to incorporate all aspects of the ecosystem in which a product is used. The focus of holistic design is context dependent; even so, among other things, it considers aesthetics, sustainability, and spirituality.

 

While it is most commonly employed in architecture, with a little thought, holistic design can be adapted to any form of product or service design. Designer Yves Behar offers seven key principles for designers to incorporate holistic design in their work:

 

Begin with questions rather than answers. Instead of acting on a brief which already dictates the answers, asking questions which put the problem in its holistic context is far more important.

Deliver more, not less. Don’t reduce functionality to meet holistic goals – improve the functionality and meet holistic goals.

Create your own theories. Borrow shamelessly from disciplines other than design, and adapt theories from those disciplines so as to deliver greater designs.

Use 360-degree design. Look at the whole customer lifecycle of a product and design from marketing to disposal.

Consider alternative business models. Behar’s business recognizes how hard it can be for clients to trust the iterative holistic design process and often trades royalties or equities rather than charging traditional fees.

Do better. Look at projects which seem impossible, and then aim to deliver them anyway.

Find what you want that everyone else wants. Create change, and meet unmet needs.

Holistic design may appear avant-garde and ambitious, but what it demands of a designer’s imagination is the same creativity that can pay dividends far into the future. Designing for sustainability is key to future-proofing a product; adopting a holistic approach addresses that sustainability.

 

www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/holistic-design

 

Introduction

I am a lecturer at the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design Architectural Department, Jerusalem and a practicing architect working in Israel for the last 20 years.

My work has focused both on practice & theory.

My on going search for what is behind the order of human environment, had been developed gradually by me since my studies at the Architectural Association (AA) school of Architecture in London (Dip 1973), through research work with Prof. Christopher Alexander at the "Center for Environmental Structure" Berkeley California, my post graduate studies in Architecture & Buddhist studies at U.C. Berkeley (1979-81), and along my teachings and practice in Israel in the last 25 years.

When religion and nationalism are cynically used by fundamentalists and by extremist right and left groups to cause cultural conflicts, and when architects are prompted by aggressive political motives, there is a real existential threat to the physical and human environment we live in.

There is no doubt, that the great art (and architecture) creations throughout history evolved in societies that drew their strength from their cultural and spiritual traditions and from the places they belonged to. These sources, which one might take as the factor that separates cultures and peoples, are exactly the ones that link them together in harmony.

The same tree that symbolizes life in the Cabala appears in Tantra Asana art; the same red thread the people of Tibet wear on their wrist for good luck are put on baby's pram in the Jewish tradition. In present state of affairs there is a need for a new worldview that by its very nature crosses cultures, replacing current conceptions and approaches.

The first part of the essay will present the holistic worldview, a school of thought that has been at the forefront of science for many years in which my architectural work belong, and the way this approach got interpretated by me both in theory and in the design process, a process fundamentally different from customary ones.

 

The second part will be a presentation of two selected projects built by me in Israel forming a clear implementation and interpretation of the concepts described before, in relation to their cultural and physical (urban and rural) reality.

The first project is the Music Centre and Library at the historic heart of Tel-Aviv forming a unique dialogue between a new building and the historical environment, an environment being a unique interface between the orient and the west (completed 1997).

The second project is a Residential Neighborhood in the Kibbutz forming a new concept of housing related to the recent structural changes in the kibbutz life, giving a new definition to the conception of equality.

ARCHITECTURE IS MADE FOR PEOPLE

A phenomenological approach to architecture

The purpose of architecture, as I see it, is first and foremost to create a humanenvironment for human beings. Buildings affect our lives and the fate of the physical environment in which we live over the course of many years, and therefore their real test is the test of time. The fine, old buildings and places we always want to return to ‚ those with timeless relevance‚are the ones that touch our heart, and have the power to create a deep and direct emotional experience.

Contemporary architecture as well as conceptual art sought to dissociate themselves from the world of emotions and connect the design process to the world of ideas, thus creating a rational relation between building and man, devoid of any emotion.

There are different ways to describe buildings that have this timeless quality, buildings that convey an inherent spiritual experience. Frank Lloyd Wright called them "the ones which take you beyond words". Quoted by Stephen Grabow, (Grabow, 1983) Christopher Alexander says: "The buildings that have spiritual value are a diagram of the inner universe, or the picture of the inner soul." And in The Timeless Way of Building (Alexander, 1979), Alexander writes, "There is one timeless way of building. It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. And as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form as the trees and hills, and as our faces are."

His Holiness the Dalai Lama calls this quality: "the great self, the such ness or the nature of reality... The state of mind which brings us close to that quality is a state of knowledge and awareness detached from extraneous factors as the mere clarity of the mind".

 

Although this timeless quality exists in buildings rooted in different cultures and traditions, the experience they generate is common to all people, no matter where or from what culture they come from. Thus Alexander's basic assumption was that behind this quality, which he calls "The quality without a name", lies auniversal and eternal element common to us as human beings.

It seems to me that the real challenge of current architectural practice is to make the best use of the potential inherent in the modern technological age we live in while fulfilling the timeless needs common to us all as human beings - needs that modern architecture in general has knowingly denied for the past 60 years, in order to create a friendly and human environment.

The basic argument presented here is that in order to change the feeling of the environment and create places and buildings that we really feel part of and want to live in, the issue here is not a change of style, but a transformation of theworldview underlying current thought and approaches.

 

THE HOLISTIC APPROACH TO ARCHITECTURE

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE PARTS AND THE WHOLE

 

The dissociation created in our time between man and his environment is a clear expression of the change that occurred in the concept that man is part of nature and not superior to it. Comparing planning processes which resulted in dissociating man from his environment to planning processes that make him feel part of the physical world he lives in, emphasizes the difference between the mechanistic-fragmentary worldview and the holistic-organic one, which guides the holistic school of thought to which my own work belongs.

These are two different sets of orders.

 

The mechanistic worldview underlying contemporary architecture separates elements and creates an environment of autonomous fragments. The result is cities like Brasilia in Brazil,

 

Chandigarth in India, the satellite towns in England and the new neighborhoods around Jerusalem, where the structured disconnection between the house and the street, the street and the neighborhood, the neighborhood and the city arouses a feeling of detachment and alienation.

The holistic-organic approach that has been for many years at the forefront of science in general and as implemented in my architecture work in particular regards the socio-physical environment as a system or a dynamic whole, the existence of which depends on the proper, ever-changing interrelations among the parts. Moreover, the creation and existence of each part depend on the interrelations between that part and the system.

In his book The Joy of Living and Dying in Peace (Dalai Lama, 1997) His Holiness the Dalai Lama refers to this concept of cause and effect by saying: "Nowadays in the field of science there are many disciplines like cosmology, neurobiology, psychology, and particle physics, disciplines that are the result of generations of scientific investigations. Their findings are closely related to Buddhist teachings. The foundation of all Buddhist teaching and practice is the principle of dependent arising. Since things arise in dependence of other causes and conditions, they are naturally free from independent and autonomous existence. Everything that is composed from parts, or conditioned by causes and conditions, is impermanent and fleeting. These things do not stay forever. They continually disintegrate. This kind of subtle impermanence is confirmed by scientific findings".

In any organic system, each element has its own uniqueness and power, but always acts as part of a larger entity to which it belongs and which it complements. vHaving adopted this concept, I do not regard urban design, architecture, interior design and landscape design as independent disciplines removed from each other, but asone continuous and dynamic system. Thus the building is not perceived as a collection of designed fragments, but asone hierarchical language, in which every design detail, on any level of scale, is derived from the larger whole to which it belongs, which it seeks to enhance, and for whose existence it is responsible. The overall feeling of inner wholeness-unity in a building thus stems from the proper interrelations among its parts.

The same idea is found in the Mandala, a model that represents processes occurring in nature, where there is always a center of energy feeding the parts around it. However, the very existence of this center of energy is dependent on the existence of the parts around it.

 

This concept of interdependence and continuity was presented in a public talk given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in which he noted: "The construction of the whole is caused continually by the disintegration of its parts. For example, the butter lamp as a whole is a source of light due to the melting of the butter. The melting of the butter is caused due to the heat produced by the lamp".

THE PLANNING PROCESS ITSELF

1.Choosing A Pattern Language for The Project

Based on the assumption that beauty and harmony are objective properties related to the geometrical properties inherent in the structure itself, and that feelings have to do with facts, Alexander states in his book The Timeless Way of Building (Alexander, 1979) that all places of organic order that seem unplanned and orderless are a clear expression of order on a deep and complex level. This order is based on absolute rules that have always determined the quality and beauty of a place, and is the source of the good feeling in it. In other words, there is a direct connection between the patterns of events that occur in a place and the physical patterns - patterns of space in his terminology ‚ that constitute it.

The fact that places that share a common pattern of events (for example, Piazza San Marco in Venice and Piazza Mayor in Madrid), although different in form, all create the same emotional pleasant experience, gave rise to the hypothesis, that beyond what appears different, there is something else, common to them all.

 

Let's take for example the pattern called Arcade – an archetype of a structure that relates to the transition area between a building and the open space around it. Although the arcade in the Hadera synagogue is different from the one in the Assisi cloister or the one in the Tel-Aviv Senior Citizens Day Center, there is one superstructurecommon to them all, a superstructure that defines therelationship between the building and its surroundings.

Since the environment consists of patterns that produce a common experience, the relevant question was, what lies behind the specific patterns that produce the samecomfortable feeling we all share in that environment. The explanation was, that as in the various spoken languages there is, according to Chomsky, a common structural element he calls the

 

language of languages or the underlying patterns, an element that is innate in human beings and therefore common to us all (which explains why children can so easily learn a foreign language), so in the physical space there are patterns that reflect an innate pattern structured in our brain.

The first step in the planning process is to determine the patterns of space that are relevant to the project. Some of them will stem from the specific context of the project and the cultural reality of the place, patterns that vary from place to place, and some from the more basic needs common to us all as human beings wherever we are, as presented in A Pattern Language (Alexander, Ishikawa, Silverstein, 1977).

Once the list of patterns relevant to a specific project has been decided, a set of interrelations between them is automatically created between them, organically defining the scheme of the project. This scheme is than translated into a plan.

2. Planning on the Site Itself

A transformational Planning Process

The plan of the building that is finally created is actually a structure of balance between the abstract pattern language chosen for the project and the living reality of the actual site, a reality that differs from site to site.

The planning process proposed here is fundamentally different from the common planning processes, a process introduced to by Alexander while I was working with him on the site plan of Shorashim Community Village in Israel, and adopted in all my work since than.

 

Once the list of patterns for the project is set, all planning decisions concerning the physical structure of the project are taken literally only on the site itself. Unlike the common planning process, where planning takes place in the office and then transferred to the site, here the drawings are merely the recordingof planning decisions that have been taken currently on the site itself.

The process of creation has to be inspired by what is already there, and our task as artists or architects is to discover, identify and revive those visible and hidden forces.

 

The creative process which feeds on what is apparently already there, is definitely not a passive one. Unlike common planning process, where everything is predetermined, this is a process whereby the plan of the building develops gradually from the interaction of the abstract planning patterns and the unpredictabledeveloping situation on the site.

In his book Zen in the Art of Archery (Herrigel, 1964) Eugene Herrigel describes the state of mind in which the process of creation must take place, noting, 'Drawing the bow and loosing the shot happens independently of the Archer. The hands must open like the skin of a ripe fruit. The Archer must let himself go, to the point that the only thing that is left of him is a purposeless tension. At this state of mind, being released from all attachments, art should be practiced'.

The order according to which the planning decisions are taken on the site is determined by the hierarchical order in which the planning patterns appear on my list governed by the rules of the pattern language itself. Decisions are first made on issues that affect the larger scale we have to confront at any given moment along the development of the plan, moving to other decisions generating from them.

Moreover, the planning process is not conceived as an additive, but rather as adifferentiating one, where each new element of the plan is differentiatedgradually from previous ones.

Each decision taken on the site and marked on the ground actually changes the configuration of the site as a whole. That new whole (configuration) that has been created and can be fully visualized on the site forms the basis for the next decision. Since each stage is based on the previous one, a wrong decision creates a faulty system that cannot serve as a basis for the next decision.

The final 'layout' that emerges on the site is measured and recorded by a surveyor. That moment when all the markers suddenly become a whole, a visible plan, is a moment of surprise and excitement.

 

Experience has taught me that decisions that sometimes appear irregular and strange on paper often make sense in reality (where it comes from), and vice versa, a plan that appears perfect on paper (where it was created) does not make sense on the site. So, if when looking at the 'stakes plan' doubts arise concerning one or more of the decisions taken on the site, the correction is not made on paper in the office, but checked again on the site itself. The final "stakes plan" forms the basis for the final plan.

      

CHOOSING THE COLORS FOR THE BUILDING

Choosing the colors for the building is one of the more difficult decisions in the design process. The choice of colors has an overwhelming effect on the feeling of the building. Colors have the power to give life and enhance the qualities inherent originally in a building or to suppress them. The choice of color is made intuitively on the site when the building is completed, when I can fully sense its mass as part of the overall environment. I try to envision the colors (hues) that practically reveal themselves naturally from the building. Only then do I experiment with applications of those colors in order to arrive at the final tones.

As in the planning of the building, so at this stage of choosing the colors, the process is a gradual one. First I determine the color of the walls ‚ the big mass, and then deriving from that, follows the decision about the colors of the window frames, the rails, the gates and all the other details, to the smallest one, so as to complement, enhance and enlighten previously chosen colors.

 

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE QUALITIES OF

TRADITION AND MODERN TECHNOLOGY

Modern technology available today should not be conceived as an aim or a value in itself, but as a tool to create a human and friendly environment that will satisfy the basic needs that are common to all of us as human beings. Despite the unlimited possibilities it opens to us, that should be used in a controlled, value-oriented and moral way.

 

One of the immediate questions I am asked in reaction to the buildings I design is whether it is a new design that tries to reconstruct an architectural language of the past. My answer to that is that I do not attempt or aim to reconstruct the past or to nostalgically trace this or that style. The similarity and the association created between the buildings I design and those we know from the past, and the similar experience and feeling they create, originate in my use of the same fundamentalpatterns and planning codes that guided in the past and will be guide in the future in any culture and tradition, those who aspire to give a building a spirit and soul, codes that have been brutally ignored (in general) by contemporary architecture, and which I try to revive and implement in the buildings I design, in relation to the physical and social context of the place I am working in.

MUSIC CENTER AND LIBRARY

A UNIQUE DIALOGUE BETWEEN A NEW BUILDING AND THE HISTORICAL ENVIRONMENT

Tel-Aviv, Israel

 

Completion Date 1997

Preserving the spirit of a historical environment does not necessarily mean a fanatic repetition of its language. The Bialik district at the heart of Tel-Aviv, with Bialik Square at its center, is a micro-document of the architectural history of Tel-Aviv from the 19201⁄4s, the "Eclectic period", when European architecture was brought to Israel and integrated with the local oriental architecture, to the 19301⁄4s and the new 'International Style' somewhat later.

The new Music Center and Library built at Bialik Square (1997) is located on the site of a three-story residential house built in 1931 and demolished in 1994. My commission was to design a new building integrating a reconstructed part of the façade of the old one.

My conception was that once you demolish a building and reconstruct just one isolated architectural element of it, it would become a meaningless fragment, for it would no longer be an organic part of the whole, and thus would not serve the initial purpose of preserving the old. Thus, what I tried to do was to treat the reconstructed part as an environmental element that has to be naturally integrated with the newly designed building, to form one coherent functional-visual entity.

The intention was to design the new center as an integral part of the square.

The key question I asked myself was, what is the right thing to do in order to preserve and enhance the spirit of what still exists around there, which is so human and right.

Standing in the square I adopted none of the classical approaches. I aimed neither to reconstruct the past nor to dissociate myself from it by enforcing a completely new order. I was looking for a language that at that point in time in Bialik Square would create a meaningful dialogue between a new, contemporary building and the historical environment.

  

The Interrelation Between The Building And The Square

 

The powerful presence of the building in the square emanates from its being an integral part of it, and not from the efforts to distinguish it from its environment.

This intimate and organic integration was created by several basic means:

The dimensions of the building were in harmony with the human scale of the square.

The façade of the building defines the boundaries of the square, and therefore determines the feeling it inspires. The orange paint of the building1⁄4s faÁade, apparently expected to disturb the tranquility of the square, was the element that complemented the blue color of the sky and the green color of the trees to create a harmony that inspired peace and serenity in the square.

The cornices that jut out at the faÁade belong morphologically both to the building and to the space next to it, uniting them together.

The dialogue between the building and the square continues through the high windows behind which all the indoor 'public' areas are located, as well as from the roof terrace overlooking the square.

The crown on top of the building provides a graduated link to the sky. Its shape was derived from the same language that determined the pattern of the cement tiles of the porch and the reliefs on the railing wall.

At the front, where the building touches the square, an entrance porch was designed for the orchestra to play to the audience sitting in the square, thus creating a physical and human connection between the building and the square.

 

The interior of the building

 

Past the main lobby, at the entrance to the building, is the auditorium, separated from it by a glass wall, through which the back garden at the far end can be seen.

 

At the side of the lobby there is a wide-open staircase, which is an identified beautiful space by itself. It leads to the upper floors, providing a view to all the floors open to it.

The first floor houses the lending library with the catalogues and librarian counter at the entrance. The rear areas are reserved for the notes, scores and books, with access to staff only.

The second floor accommodates the museum of musical instruments and contemporary exhibitions related to music. Further along, past glass partitions are a study and periodicals room and an archive. These three spaces make one visual continuum while preserving the identity and uniqueness of each space.

  

The top floor houses the audiovisual library that lends discs, videotapes, and records. Further along, beyond the glass partition, is an audiovisual room with a view of the sea.

  

Extending from this floor, overlooking the square, is a roof terrace that has also a view of the sea.

The secret enfolded in the beauty of a building (or of any artifact) as a whole lies in its spatial order and in the nature of its details. The details like the furniture, lighting accessories, materials and colors, are regarded as an inherent part of the building and therefore are inseparable part of my planning process.

The similarity in form between the details stems from the common whole to which they belong.

In modern society, beauty has become a term of abuse, often associated with inefficiency, impracticality, lack of functionalism and high costs. That notion of beauty is true when it relates to details as decorative elements and ornamentationfor its own sake.

The Shakers, a religious sect that created an abundance of useful furniture and utensils in the mideighteenth century, noted that the wholeness and beauty of form are products of pure functionalism, and that there is no room for beautiful forms that do not flow from a functional need. Take, for example the gold leaves capital of the iron column, which connects it to the beam. This part is functionally separate from the other parts of the column and was therefore given a different form and color.

At the same time, however, the Shakers did not interpret the term 'pure functionalism' in the narrow sense of the word, as did the modernists, for whom the expression 'form follows function' was semantically connected only to thephysical body of the building, but in the broad sense that connects it both to the physical and spiritual experience in a building. This is the experience I want to create for the users of the buildings I design.

This concept is manifested, for example, in the following design details:

The wall between the lobby and the auditorium, which normally would be solid, is a glass wall that allows a view to the depth of the building immediately upon entrance.

The six steel columns that rise to the top of the building are structural, but at the same time their placement helps to define and distinguish the public areas of each floor.

The capital of the column, a functional entity that both separates it from the beam and connects it to it, is distinguished from other parts of the column by its leave-like shape and its gold color.

The textured gold color of the walls in the public areas is different from the color of other spaces.

The seams between the stone tiles and the carpets are made of cherry wood, a third material that both joins and separates the two.

The soft reflection of the light when it touches the gold, silver and redish colors in the space creates a unique feeling that envelops all parts of the building.

All parts of the audiovisual library are visually connected, all have a view to the roof terrace and the sea at the far distance.

     

RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE KIBBUTZ

Kibbutz Maagan Michael, Israel

Completion Date

Stage 1 2001

Stage 2 2004

STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN KIBBUTZ LIFE REQUIRE A NEW CONCEPT OF HOUSING

From Quantitive Uniformity to Qualitative Equality

 

The social, economic and physical structure of the collective known as a 'kibbutz' was founded in Israel in the early 20th century.

Its uppermost value since its very beginning was equality, translated in most realms of community life not as equality of opportunities, in its qualitative sense, but rather in itsquantitative sense, as formal uniformity. This dogmatic equality obliterated the self-identity and uniqueness of the individual and saw him only as part of the collective.

In recent years, however, this old conception of equality has been redefined in many respects. The social structure reverted back to the nuclear family, with children raised at home, and no longer in a communal house where they were regarded as the possession of the community as

a whole. Wages, previously based on the notion that every member contributed according to his or her own ability, but was supported according to his or her needs, have now become differential, based on one's contribution. Housing in the kibbutz is perhaps the last fortress of the old and simplistic conception of equality, a conception that now more than ever can change.

According to this conception, houses are regarded as static models ofpredetermined uniform shape, arbitrarily positioned on the building site. All houses with no regard to any environmental factors such as the direction of light or the angle open to the view on any specific plot, resulted in having all identical plan and elevations. Thus a tenant whose window happens to face the orchard has the advantage on the one whose window faces the cow shed.

 

This approach created a qualitative inequality between the houses and inequality of opportunities among the tenants.

Moreover, the outcome of this dogmatic approach was that houses built in the desert environment of the Negev or the hilly Galilean environment were exactly the same.

The new model I implemented in the design of the new houses in Kibbutz Maagan Michael was fundamentally different. The planning process adopted was based on patterns that were common to all the houses, patterns that grew out both of the social structure of the kibbutz and the geographic location facing the sea. When these common patterns were used in different site conditions, a variety of houses emerged, sharing one architectural language.

 

Planning the neighborhood on the site

Kibbutz Ma'agan is situated on a hill, with the new neighborhood on the western side that faces the sea. Each planning decision, from the positioning of the house on the site, through the determination of the direction of its entrance in relation to the path, and unto the location of each window, was taken on the site of each plot.

 

First the position of each house in relation to the others was determined, so as to ensure that each one has an open view to the water and can enjoy the breeze coming from the sea.

To determine the level of each house so that one could see the sea while sitting on the terrace, I used a crane that lifted me up to where I could see the sea. This height was measured and the level of the house was determined accordingly.

   

At the center of the neighborhood, a path was planned connecting the promenade that runs along the water and the path that runs from the

communal dining hall at the heart of the kibbutz to the neighborhood.

What dictated the course of the path was the wish to see the water from every spot along the path.

The houses were arranged in small clusters, sharing a communal open space. Unlike the traditional pattern in the kibbutz, where all open spaces, called 'the lawn', are communal and the buildings are dispersed arbitrarily in between, here the secondary paths running between the houses defined in a non-formal way, with no fences, the 'private' zone of each family.

This sense of 'private territory' unexpectedly created a new reality in which each family started to grow its own garden. This new pattern of behavior could not have developed in the traditional model, where the common open spaces were planned as the property of everyone, and therefore of no one.

 

At this stage the site plan was completed. The position of each house in the neighborhood in relation to the paths and its position in relation to the sea produced different types of house plans. On plots where the entrance from the path was in the same direction as the sea view, type A plans emerged. Here the entrance was through the main garden to the living-dining area that faced the view.

On plots where the entrance was from the opposite direction of the sea view, type B plans developed, and the entrance was through the opposite side of the garden and living areas.

In front of each house there is a bicycle rack (the only means of transport allowed within the boundaries of the kibbutz). Next to the entrance door a place for muddy boots was allocated, a prominent symbol of the kibbutz.

The walls are all whitewashed light blue, complemented by regionally quarried sandstone characterizing the construction details.

The implementation of a conceptually new model in a very rigid social framework became possible now, as a result of an overall change in the reality of the kibbutz communities, a change that was inevitable in the twenty-first century.

 

Nili Portugali

© 2005

Nili Portugali is an architect based in Tel-Aviv, Israel and has just published a new book, "The Act of Creation and the Spirit of a Place: A Holistic-Phenomenological Approach to Architecture", Edition Axel Menges, Stuttgart & London 2006. See www.niliportugali.com for more details.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Joy of Living and Dying in Peace, Harper Collins, India, 1997

Christopher Alexander, S. Ishikawa, M. Silverstein, A Pattern Language, Oxford University Press, 1977

 

Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, Oxford University Press, 1979

Stephen Grabow, Christopher Alexander, The Search for a New Paradigm in Architecture, Oriel Press, 1983

Eugene Herrigel, Zen and the Art of Archery, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964

Views expressed on this page are those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by those involved in INTBAU.

  

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our lives are comprised of stories;

whether written in the stars, our genetics,

childhood circumstances and experiences,

or written of our own accord.

 

the longest running story of my life

began at age 3, my first memory of mind.

sans details, i will just say that it is quite

the existential tale of endless singular,

solitary suffering.

 

from that memory, stories wove webs

of despair, hopeless/helplessness;

tangled weaves of self-loathing

wrapped their delicate and silk-strong

fibers around my heart, spirit.

 

i have lived with a chronic illness

as long as the day, the night, the years.

depression.

 

i'm not speaking of periods of,

i am speaking of

period.

 

the various stories based on that first one

whisper, shout, mumble, rant

tales of woe, within, on & off, daily.

i insistently, fervently, laboriously

edit & rewrite over & over & on & on

as equally long as those first-writes speak.

 

at times i do well.

yet also in line with the twisted power of the nihilistic tellings

at times i do not.

 

the other day i said to a friend: "my life has been wasted, a waste."

as is his teasing, joking, clever, lighten-things-up wont, he responded:

"it hasn't been a waste, it's just been fruitless."

 

he didn't know, that just that day i had been musing

on my childlessness - literal and metaphoric -

musing with sadness, regret,

thinking of those i know who have children,

who have careers.

he didn't know, that as he said that,

even knowing he intended no ill will or harm,

at that moment i felt a tremble of recognition,

of rightness in that sentiment:

 

"o. yes. i have been thinking that.

my life has borne no fruit

with which to nourish myself

and others.

i have not pollinated, fertilized,

i have not accomplished, produced,

from egg, seed to flower to fruit,

that which would've created

greater health & well-being,

greater possibilities of happiness, fulfillment,

that with which to draw from now

and sip, sup, drink, eat, share with loved ones,

that with which to sustain

in these middle-ish-and-on years of my life.

 

barrenness must emanate from this,

others must see this, know this,

instinctively, reasonably,

and choose

not to dine

with me."

 

one greatly abbreviated chapter

in this book i bear.

 

i offer this story

in the hopes of communicating to some of you:

you are not alone.

 

I had all these existential life questions for you guys but the mood is over. I listened to the sound of crunching snow underneath my feet and decided life can be beautiful (when you don't think too much about it).

russellmoreton.blogspot.com/

 

Longshore drift is a geographical process that consists of the transportation of sediments (clay, silt, sand and shingle) along a coast at an angle to the shoreline, which is dependent on prevailing wind direction, swash and backwash. This process occurs in the littoral zone, and in or close to the surf zone.

 

AI Overview

The image is of a shingle or pebble beach, a type of shoreline composed mainly of rounded stones, gravel, and seashells.

Beaches are dynamic landforms created by the accumulation of sediments, such as sand or pebbles, which are deposited along the shore by wave action.

Shingle beaches are common on exposed coasts where waves have enough energy to move the material.

The composition of the beach depends on local coastal processes and the types of rocks and minerals available in the area.

The area just beyond the normal reach of the waves, where debris accumulates, is called the strandline, and it can support specific types of hardy plants.

I have an existential map. It has 'You are here' written all over it.

-- Steven Wright, American Comedian

Soom Neo-angel Region Humpty-Dumpty and Aimerai Bellina the Hen

Taken with Camera App

Processed using snapseed, procreate, mextures and formulas app.

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Fort Kochi, Cochin, Kerela.

The We're Here! gang is considering the question mark today.

 

I am considering Burt Bacharach, Cilla Black, Dionne Warwick, and existential angst in 1966. What's it all about?

 

youtu.be/glpIgnmKrZc?si=6PG1Iw6dfVn4J7CQ

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"For all of us, then, the season of Lent in this Jubilee Year is a favourable time to overcome our existential alienation by listening to God’s word and by practising the works of mercy. In the corporal works of mercy we touch the flesh of Christ in our brothers and sisters who need to be fed, clothed, sheltered, visited; in the spiritual works of mercy – counsel, instruction, forgiveness, admonishment and prayer – we touch more directly our own sinfulness. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy must never be separated. By touching the flesh of the crucified Jesus in the suffering, sinners can receive the gift of realizing that they too are poor and in need."

– Pope Francis, Message for Lent 2016.

 

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, and this stained glass window is in Baltimore Cathedral.

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iphone 3GS

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Walking on foot brings you down to the very stark, naked core of existence. We travel too much in airplanes and cars. It’s an existential quality that we are losing. It’s almost like a credo of religion that we should walk.

 

There is, of course, something inherently romantic—if not heroic—about the extreme solitary explorer enveloped by nature. The very image of Herzog on foot recalls the iconic 19th-century paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, especially his Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, with its lone figure staring out at the wide vista above the clouds.

 

'Truth itself wanders through the forests,' Herzog writes near the end. Yet here he embroiders his memories for effect: The vast swath of geography between Munich and Paris is littered with industrial towns and cities.

 

Once he comes out on the other end, traversing the deforested Champs-Élysées (“We were close to what they call the breath of danger”), Herzog emerges victorious.

― Of Walking in Ice: (Munich-Paris, 23 November–14 December 1974)

by Werner Herzog

 

Source: Werner Herzog’s Maniacal Quests ―A newly published travel journal shows how walking, like filmmaking, brings us to the naked core of existence. (Noah Isenberg)

The more I learn about myself, the more I fear myself. I’m told I should remain neutral. A Switzerland of the mind.

Sydney is behind me, for now. This time slip feels right, and for the grammar purist, I recommend you take a step back from this one. Honestly, you don't have to be Einstein to get it, or to even suppose we've come full circle to get here.

 

There is seasonal insouciance about all this. The theme is musical without a Christmas tune. There might be some creedence to the tradition of putting a candle in the window. Even as that stage is crowded, so too will be this house when the lights finally go down. All of that aside, later, when I emerge into the tumult of the night, my emotions with be smashed like four seasons in one day. Classical or not, Le quattro stagioni is written as a slogan across the finest Bormioli Rocco preserving jars in my pantry. These are the things I live by.

 

There are four music stands on that podium. One each for the four players — sans the prescribed harpsicord — but enough for the imaginative. The first violin — 294 years old — is still younger than the violin concerti I am here to enjoy. Sure, it's done to death in modern culture, even stooping to advertising muzak. When it's all said and done, there is some comfort in that familiarity. What is unfamiliar is what is said — I had no idea that the score was accompanied by sonnets; albeit hardly Shakespearian sonnets.

 

This little theatre — named after an arts patron, and coincidentally a scion of one of the benefactors who purchased the land for that little church back in Manly — is hosting a string quartet's recital of Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons which may, or may not be 300 years old this year. I can't remember.

 

Now, to that apostrophe. The first violin is responsible for what appears to be a grammatical violation. Her name wasn't Carol. That didn't stop the first violin calling the other violinist Annie, even when her name was actually Pip. It might as well have been Carol, in which case, she would have been by candlelight.

 

Show over, it was time to emerge into the gloaming, and a sound that clenches the buttocks, rattles the chest like a top fuel dragster at close quarters, and makes me want to look for cover: a war bird on full song…

 

I don't recall telling anyone I'd be here, so I wasn't expecting an F35 flypast. Logically my reaction was: "SO SOON?". That's when I remembered the gathering crowds in the valley down which that plane was screaming. No, not yet. I didn't have long to wait before it came around for another pass, this time almost straight overhead, afterburner lit, stick back, and into a vertical climb until, so soon, even that Roman Candle disappeared into the dark. Did you know that the G-suit was invented by Professor Frank Cotton of the Sydney University? Importantly for us, his niece was a famous photographer. All right, the Canadians claim the honour, even if theirs was made a year later than Uncle Frank's.

 

Being neither July 4, nor November 5, we need another thing or two for March 14. You clever lot! Some of you know. I'm off home to bed. I'm up well past my bedtime.

   

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www.analogica.it/topic13973-60.html

 

Nella scala sociale "fotografica", le apparecchiature ex-Sovietiche nn godono di una grande reputazione... addirittura sono spesso sputazzate e denigrate. A volte però, certamente per casi fortuiti, riescono a regalare risultati quantomeno decenti ai loro possessori... che come è noto sono di "bocca buona" ! Certamente il loro utilizzo, rientra in quella che potremmo definire "una missione disperata" ... estremamente divertente però... ;/) Io adoro questi accrocchi "improponibili"!!

 

(*)

Киев-60 TTL (Kiev 60 TTL) "Chebarkul" by Arsenal soviet camera

Волна 3 (Volna-3) 2.8/80 soviet lens

1/125 - F5.6 on-board lightmeter

Fomapan 400 @ 250iso (120 format)

Adox Adonal 1+50 10min 30sec - 21 °C tank AP Compact

Epson V600

 

See cloudtogroundimages.com/2013/12/26/northern-territory-exi...

The rest of the story. See image to the right of this panel.

 

Nothing escapes a black hole. Light cannot escape and neither can existence. At the event horizon, existence does not precede essence; existence precedes extinction. A being on the precipice will inevitably become extinct. But what happens to a being after its extinction is not so well-known. The supercollider photos in the sequence above show what happens after extinction. And thanks to Monty Cook for the title.

Pride and Prejudice: on Raphael Perez's Artwork

   

Raphael Perez, born in 1965, studied art at the College of Visual Arts in Beer Sheva, and from 1995 has been living and working in his studio in Tel Aviv. Today Perez plays an important role in actively promoting the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) art and culture in Tel Aviv, and the internet portal he set up helps artists from the community reach large audiences in Israel and abroad. Hundreds of his artworks are part of private collections in Israel and abroad, and his artworks were shown in several group exhibitions: in Tel Aviv Museum of Art, "Zman Le'Omanut" art gallery, Camera Obscura, The Open House in Jerusalem, Ophir Gallery, The Haifa Forum and other private businesses and galleries.

 

In 2003-4 his paintings and studio appeared in a full-length movie, three student films and two graduation films.

   

Raphael Perez is the first Israeli artist to express his lifestyle as a Gay. His life and the life of the LGBT community are connected and unfold over hundreds of artwork pieces. His art creation is rare and extraordinary by every Israeli and international artistic standard. His sources of inspiration are first and foremost life events intertwined in Jewish and Israeli locality as well as influences and quotes from art history (David Hockney, Matisse). This uniqueness has crossed international borders and has succeeded in moving the LGBT and art communities around the world.

   

This is the first time we meet an Israeli artist who expresses all of his emotions in a previously unknown strength. The subjects of the paintings are the everyday life of couples in everyday places and situations, along with the aspiration to a homosexual relationship and family, equality and public recognition. Perez's works bring forward to the cultural space and to the public discourse the truth about living as LGBT and about relationships, with all of their aspects – casual relationships and sex, the yearning for love, the everyday life and the mundane activities that exist in every romantic relationship – whether by describing two men in an intimate scene in the bathroom, the bedroom or the toilet, a male couple raising a baby or the homosexual version of the Garden of Eden, family dinners, relationship ups and downs, the complexity in sharing a life as well as mundane, everyday life competing with the aspiration to self realization – through Perez's life.

     

Perez's first artworks are personal diaries, which he creates at 14 years of age. He makes sure to hide these diaries, as in them he keeps a personal journal describing his life events in the most genuine way. In these journals he draws thousands of drawings and sketches, next to which he alternately writes and erases his so-called "problematic texts", texts describing his struggle with his sexual orientation. His diaries are filled with obsessive cataloging of details, daily actions, friends and work, as well as repeating themes, such as thoughts, exhibits he has seen, movies, television, books and review of his work.

   

When he is done writing, Perez draws on his diaries. Each layer is done from beginning to end all along the journal. In fact, the work on the diaries never ends.

 

This struggle never ends, and when the emotion is passed on to paper, and it ends its role and becomes meaningless in a way, the visual-graphic side becomes dominant, due to the need to hide the written text, according to Perez. In books and diaries this stands out even more – when he chooses to draw in a style influenced by children's drawings, the characters are cheerful, happy, naïve and do not portray any sexuality, and when he tries drawing as an adult the sketches became more depressed and somber. During these years Perez works with preschool children, teaching them drawing and movement games. Perez says that during this period he completely abandoned the search for a relationship, either with a woman or a man, and working with children has given him existential meaning. This creation continues over 10 years, and Perez creates about 60 books-personal journals in various sizes (notepads, old notebooks, atlases and even old art books).

   

In his early paintings (1998-1999) the transition from relationships with women to relationships with men can be seen, from restraint to emotional outburst in color, lines and composition. Some characters display strong emotional expression. The women are usually drawn in restraint and passiveness, while a happy and loving emotional outburst is expressed in the colors and style of the male paintings.

   

"I fantasized that in a relationship with a woman I could fly in the sky, love, fly. However, I felt I was hiding something; I was choked up, hidden behind a mask, as if there was an internal scream wanting to come out. I was frustrated, I felt threatened…"

   

His first romance with a man in 1999 has drawn out a series of naïve paintings dealing with love and the excitement of performing everyday actions together in the intimate domestic environment.

   

"The excitement from each everyday experience of doing things together and the togetherness was great, so I painted every possible thing I liked doing with him."

   

From the moment the self-oppression and repression stopped, Perez started the process of healing, which was expressed in a burst of artworks, enormous in their size, amount, content and vivid colors – red, pink and white.

   

In 2000 Perez starts painting the huge artworks describing the hangouts of the LGBT community (The Lake, The Pool) and the Tel Avivian balcony paintings describing the masculine world, which, according to him, becomes existent thanks to the painting. Perez has dedicated this year to many series of drawings and paintings of the experience of love, in which he describes his first love for his new partner, and during these months he paints from morning to night. These paintings are the fruit of a long dialogue with David Hockney, and the similarity can be seen both in subjects and in different gestures.

   

In 2001 Perez creates a series of artworks, "Portraits from The Community". Perez describes in large, photorealistic paintings over 20 portraits of active and well-known members of the LGBT community. The emphasis is on the achievements that reflect the community's strong standing in Tel Aviv.

 

As a Tel-Avivian painter, in the past two years Perez has been painting urban landscapes of central locations in his city. Perez wanders around the city and chooses familiar architectural and geographical landmarks, commerce and recreation, and historical sites, and paints them from a homosexual point of view, decorated with the rainbow flag, which provide a sense of belonging to the place. His artworks are characterized by a cheerful joie de vivre and colors, and they also describe encounters and meetings. The touristic nature of his paintings makes them a declaration of Tel Aviv's image as a place where cultural freedom prevails.

 

Perez's Tel Aviv is a city where young families and couples live and fill the streets, the parks, the beach, the houses and the balconies – all the city's spaces. The characters in his paintings are similar, which helps reinforcing the belonging to the LGBT community in Tel Aviv. The collective theme in Perez's artwork interacts with the work of the Israeli artist Yohanan Simon, who dealt with the social aspects of the Kibbutz. Simon, who lived and worked in a Kibbutz, expressed the human model of the Kibbutznik (member of a Kibbutz) and the uniqueness of the Kibbutz members as part of a group where all are equal. Simon's works, and now Perez's, have contributed to the Israeli society what is has been looking for endlessly, which is a sense of identity and belonging.

 

Perez maps his territory and marks his boundaries, and does not forget the historical sites. Unlike other Tel Avivian artists, Perez wishes to present the lives of the residents of the city and the great love in their hearts. By choosing the historical sites in Tel Aviv, he also pays tribute to the artist Nachum Gutman, who loved the city and lived in it his whole life. In his childhood Gutman experienced historical moments (lighting the first oil lamp, first concert, first pavement), and as an adult he recreated the uniqueness of those events while keeping the city's magic.

 

Like Gutman, Perez has also turned the city into an object of love, and it has started adorning itself in rich colors and supplying the energy of a city that wishes to be "the city that never sleeps", combining old and new. Perez meticulously describes the uniqueness and style of the Bauhaus houses and balconies along the modern glass and steel buildings, all from unusual angles in a rectangular format that wishes to imitate the panorama of a diverse city in its centennial celebrations.

   

Daniel Cahana-Levensohn, curator.

       

Interview with the painter Raphael Perez about his family artist book

 

An interview with the painter Raphael Perez about an artist's book he created about his family, the Peretz family from 6 Nissan St. Kiryat Yuval Jerusalem

     

Question: Raphael Perez, tell me about the family artist book you created

 

Answer: I created close to 40 artist books, notebooks, diaries, sketch books and huge books. I dedicated one of the books to my dear family, a book in which I took a childhood photograph of my family, my parents and brothers and sisters.. I pasted the photographs inside a book (the photograph is 10 percent of the total painting) and I drew with acrylic paints, markers and ink on the book and the photograph, so that the image of the photograph was an inspiration to me Build the story that includes page by page..

     

Question: Tell me when you were born, where, and a little about your family

 

Answer: I was born on March 4, 1965 in the Kiryat Yuval neighborhood in Jerusalem

 

I have a twin brother named Miki Peretz and we are seven brothers and sisters, five boys and two girls

   

Question: Tell us a little about your parents

 

Answer: My parents were new immigrants from Morocco, both immigrated young.

 

My mother's name before the wedding was Alice - Aliza ben Yair and my father's name was Shimon Peretz,

 

My mother was born in the Atlas Mountains and was orphaned at a young age and was later adopted by my father's family at the age of 10, so that my mother and father spent childhood and adolescence together....

 

They had a beautiful and happy relationship but sometimes when they argued my mother would say "even when she was a child she was like that..." This means that their acquaintance and relationship dates back to childhood..

     

Question: What did your parents Shimon and Aliza Peretz work for?

 

Answer: My father, Shimon Perez, born in 1928 - worked in a building in his youth and then for thirty years worked as a receptionist at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem... My father's great love was actually art, he loved to draw as a hobby, write, read, solve crossword puzzles and research Regarding the issue of medicinal plants, as a breadwinner he could not fulfill his dream of becoming an artist, in order to support and feed seven children. But we are the next generation, his children are engaged in the world of creativity and education, a field in which both of my parents were engaged during their lives. My father died at the age of 69

   

My mother, Alice Aliza Perez, born in 1934, worked as an assistant to a kindergarten teacher, and later took care of a baby at home. She is a woman of wholehearted giving and caring for children and people, a warm, generous and humble woman.. and took care of us in our childhood for every emotional and physical deficiency.. My mother is right For the year 2023, the 89-year-old is partly happy and happy despite the difficulties of age.. May you have a long life..

   

My mother really loved gardening and nature and both of them together created a magnificent garden, my parents have a relatively large garden so they could grow many types of special and rare medicinal plants and my father even wrote a catalog (unpublished) of medicinal plants and we even had botany students come to us who were interested in the field... today they They also grow ornamental plants, and fruit trees...

   

Question: A book about the brothers and sisters

 

Answer: My elder brother David Perez repented in his mid-twenties.. He was a very sharp, opinionated, curious and very charismatic guy who brought many people back to repentance, and also helped people with problems through the yeshiva and the synagogue to return to the normal path of life, he died young at the age of 56

   

Hana Peretz: My lovely sister, raised eight children, worked in the field of education, a kindergarten teacher, and child care.

 

She has a very large extended family of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren...

   

My brother Avi (Abraham) Peretz studied in Israel at the University of Philosophy and Judaism, he married a wonderful woman named Mira Drumi, a nurse by profession, and together they had three wonderful children, when they moved to the United States in their mid-twenties, where my brother Avi Peretz completed his master's degree in education, worked in the field Education and for the last twenty years is A conservative rabbi

   

The fourth brother is Asher Peretz - a great man of the world, very fond of traveling and has been to magical places all over the world, engaged in the creation of jewelry with two children.

   

I am Rafi Peretz english raphael perez the fifth and after fifteen minutes my twin brother was born

 

My mother still gets confused and can't remember who was born first :-)

   

My twin brother Miki micky - Michael Peretz, a beloved brother (everyone is beloved), a talented industrial designer, he has three children, his wife Revital Peretz Ben, who is a well-known art curator, active and responsible for the art field in Tel Aviv, they are a dynamic and talented couple, full of talents and action

   

The lovely little sister Shlomit Peretz - has been involved in the Bezeq telephone company for almost three decades, and is there in management positions, raising her lovely and beloved child.

     

The art book I dedicated to my family is colorful, rich in details, shows a very intense childhood, happy, cheerful, colorful, ... We were taught to be diligent and to be happy in our part and to see the glass half full in life, to have emotional intelligence and to put the relationship and love at the center with self-fulfillment in work that will interest you us and you will give us satisfaction.

   

Each of us is different in our life decisions and my family is actually a mosaic of the State of Israel that includes both religious and secular people from the entire political spectrum who understand that the secret to unity is mutual respect for each other... when my mother these days is also the family glue in everyone's gatherings on Shabbat and holidays..

   

The personification of the flower couple paintings by the Israeli painter Raphael Perez

 

Raphael Perez, also known as Rafi Peretz, is an Israeli painter who

 

explores his personal and sexual identity through his flower paintings. He created a series of flower paintings from 1995 to 1998, when he was in his early thirties and still in relationships with women, despite feeling gay. His flower paintings reflect his emotional turmoil and his struggle with his sexual orientation. He painted two flowers, one blooming and one wilting, to represent the contrast and conflict between his heterosexual relationships and his true self. He also painted single flowers or two flowers in their prime, to express his longing for a harmonious relationship that matches his nature. He chose sunflowers, white lilies, and red lilies as symbols of expression, purity, and joy, respectively. He painted from real flowers, using different styles and light to create drama and mood. Perez’s paintings of the flower couples are minimalist and focused on the theme of the complex relationship. He omitted any background or context, leaving only the canvas and the drawing of the flower couples. In some of the paintings, he added a very airy abstract surface with thin oil paints that give an atmosphere of watercolors. He also made drawings of flowers in ink, markers and gouache on paper. Later on, he created large acrylic paintings of flowers and still life. Perez’s flower paintings are not mere illustrations or decorations. They are autobiographical and psychological expressions of his inner state and his struggle with his sexuality. He wanted to reveal his loneliness, distress and concealment through these paintings, and to connect with people who are in a similar situation. He deliberately chose only two flowers and no more to intensify the engagement in the charged and complex relationship. Perez also painted and drew couples of men and women with charged psychological states, as well as states of desire for connection and realization of a heterosexual relationship that did not succeed. He used hyperrealism and expressive styles to convey his frozen and calculated state, as well as his mental stress. He used harsh lighting to create contrast and drama, with one side very bright and the other side darker. Perez was influenced by some of the famous artists who painted flowers, such as Van Gogh, who also used sunflowers as a symbol of expression. He also used white lilies and red lilies to convey freshness, cleanliness, purity, color, joy, movement, eruption, and splendor. Perez also painted some single flowers or two flowers in their prime, to show his aspiration for a future where he will have a harmonious relationship. Today, he is 58 years old and in a happy relationship for 10 years with his partner Assaf Henigsberg. He is surrounded by female friends and soulmates and not conflicted with heterosexual relationships as he used to be. He occasionally paints flowers in pots to symbolize home, stability, and peace. Sometimes I paint flowers in pots, which represent home, stability, and solid ground for me. I don’t paint just a couple of flowers, but pots full of flowers that overflow with life. This means that we also have a supportive network of family, friends, and peers around us. We live in a rich, supportive, and protective world. These paintings are a personification of my psychological state, when I had no words to express my feelings to myself. The painting began In 35 years of my creation (starting in 1998), you can read more about how my art and style evolved over time. Perez’s flower paintings are a unique and extraordinary artistic creation that reveals his personal journey and his sexual identity. His work is honest, expressive, and emotional, as well as beautiful and vibrant.

   

The characteristics of the naive painting of the painter Raphael Perez

 

A full interview with the Israeli painter Raphael Perez (Hebrew name: Rafi Peretz) about the ideas behind the naive painting, resume, personal biography and curriculum vitae Question: Raphael Perez Tell us about your work process as a naive painter? Answer: I choose the most iconic and famous buildings in every city and town that are architecturally interesting and have a special shape and place the iconic buildings on boulevards full of trees, bushes, vegetation, flowers. Question: How do you give depth in your naive paintings? Answer: To give depth to the painting, I build the painting with layers of vegetation, after those low famous buildings, followed by a tall avenue of trees, and behind them towers and skyscrapers, in the sky I sometimes put innocent signs of balloons, kites. A recurring motif in some of my paintings is the figure of the painter who is in the center of the boulevard and paints the entire scene unfolding in front of him, also there are two kindergarten teachers who are walking with the kindergarten children with the state flags that I paint, and loving couples hugging and kissing and family paintings of mother, father and child walking in harmony on the boulevard. Question: Raphael Perez, what characterizes your naive painting? Answer: Most naive paintings have the same characteristics (Definition as it appears in Wikipedia) • Tells a simple story to absorb from everyday life, usually with humans. • The representation of the painter's idealization to reality - the mapping of reality. • Failure to maintain perspective - especially details even in distant details. • Extensive use of repeating patterns - many details. • Warm and bright colors. • Sometimes the emphasis is on outlines. • Most of the characters are flat, lack volume • No interest in texture, expression, correct proportions • No interest in anatomy. • There is not much use of light and shade, the colors create a three-dimensional effect. I find these definitions to be valid for all my naive paintings Question: Raphael Perez, why do you choose the city of Tel Aviv? Answer: I was born in Jerusalem, the capital city which I love very much and also paint, I love the special Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv, the ornamental buildings that were built a century ago in the 1920s and 1930s, the beautiful boulevards, towers and modern skyscrapers give you the feeling of the hustle and bustle of a large metropolis and there are quite a few low and tall buildings that are architecturally fascinating in their form the special one Also, the move to Tel Aviv, which is the capital of culture, freedom, and secularism, allowed me to live my life as I chose, to live in a relationship with a man, Jerusalem, which is a traditional city, it is more complicated to live a homosexual life, also, the art world takes place mainly in the city of Tel Aviv, and it is possible that from a professional point of view, this allows I can support myself better in Tel Aviv than in any other city in Israel. Question: Raphael Perez, are the paintings of the city of Tel Aviv different from the paintings of the city of Jerusalem? Answer: Most of the paintings of Jerusalem have an emphasis on the color yellow, gold, the color of the old city walls, the subjects I painted in Jerusalem are mainly a type of idealization of a peaceful life between Jews and Arabs and paintings that deal with the Jewish religious world, a number of paintings depict all shades of the currents of Judaism today In contrast, the Tel Aviv paintings are more colorful, with skyscrapers, the sea, balloons and more secular motifs Question: Raphael Perez, tell me about which buildings and their architects you usually choose in your drawings of cities Answer: My favorite buildings are those that have a special shape that anyone can recognize and are the symbols of the city and you will give several examples: In the city of Tel Aviv, my favorite buildings are: the opera building with its unusual geometric shape, the Yisrotel tower with its special head, the Hail Bo Shalom tower that for years was the symbol of the tallest building in Tel Aviv, the Levin house that looks like a Japanese pagoda, the burgundy-colored Nordeau hotel with the special dome at the end of the building, A pair of Alon towers with the special structure of the sea, Bauhaus buildings typical of Tel Aviv with the special balconies and the special staircase, the Yaakov Agam fountain in Dizengoff square appears in a large part of the paintings, many towers that are in the stock exchange complex, the Aviv towers and other tall buildings on Ayalon, in some of the paintings I took plans An outline of future buildings that need to be built in the city and I drew them even before they were built in reality, In the paintings of Jerusalem, I mainly chose the area of the Old City and East Jerusalem, a painting of the walls of the Old City, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the El Akchea Mosque, the Tower of David, most of the famous churches in the city, the right hand of Moses, in most of the paintings the Jew is wearing a blue shirt with a red male cord I was in the youth movement and the Arab with a galabia, and in the paintings of the religious public then, Jews with black suits and white shirts, tallitas, kippahs, special hats, synagogues and more I also created three paintings of the city of Haifa and one painting of Safed In the Haifa paintings I drew the university, the Technion, the famous Egged Tower, the Sail Tower, well-known hotels, of course the Baha'i Gardens and the Baha'i Temple, Haifa Port and the boats and other famous buildings in the city Question: Raphael Perez, have you created series of other cities from around the world? Answer: I created series of New York City with all the iconic and famous buildings such as: the Guggenheim Museum, the famous skyscrapers - the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Lincoln Center, the famous synagogue in the city, the Statue of Liberty, the flags of the United States and other famous buildings Two paintings of London and all its famous sites, Big Ben, famous monuments, the Ferris wheel, Queen Elizabeth and her family, the double bus, the famous public telephone, palaces, famous churches, well-known monuments I created 4 naive paintings of cities in China, a painting of Shanghai, two paintings of the city of Suzhou and a painting of the World Park in the city of Beijing... I chose the famous skyline of Shanghai with all the famous towers, the famous promenade, temples and old buildings, two Paintings of the city of Suzhou with the famous canals, bridges, special gardens, towers and skyscrapers of the city Question: Raphael Perez What is the general idea that accompanies your paintings Answer: To create a good, beautiful, naive, innocent world in which we will see the innovation of the modern city through the skyscrapers in front of small and low buildings that bring the history and past of each country, all with an abundance of vegetation, boulevards, trees Resume, biography, CV of the painter Rafi Peretz and his family Question: When was Raphael Perez born in hebrew his name rafi peretz? Answer: Raphael Perez in Hebrew his name Rafi Peretz was born on March 4, 1965 Question: Where was Raphael Perez born? Answer: Raphael Perez was born in Jerusalem, Israel Question: What is the full name of Raphael Perez? Answer: His full name is Raphael Perez Question: Which art institution did Raphael Perez graduate from? Answer: Raphael Perez graduated from the Visual Arts Center in Be'er Sheva Question: When did Raphael Perez start painting? Answer: Raphael Perez started painting in 1989 Question: When did you start making a living selling art? Answer: Raphael Perez started making a living selling art in 1999 Question: Where does Raphael Perez live and work? Answer: Since 1995, Raphael Perez has been living and working from his studio in Tel Aviv Question: In which military framework did Raphael Perez serve in the IDF? Answer: Raphael Perez served in the artillery corps Question: Raphael Perez, what jobs did he work after his military service? Answer: Raphael Perez worked for 15 years in education in therapeutic settings for children and taught arts and movement Question: How many brothers and sisters does Raphael Perez, the Israeli painter, have? Answer: There are seven children in total, with the painter 5 sons and two daughters, that means the painter Raphael Perez has 4 more brothers and two sisters Question: What do the brothers and sisters of the painter Raphael Perez do? Answer: The elder brother David Peretz Perez was involved in the field of religious studies, the sister Hana Peretz Perez is involved in the field of education, a kindergarten teacher and child care, the brother Avi Peretz Perez who is in the United States today is a conservative rabbi but in the past was involved in education and therapy, the brother Asher Peretz Perez is involved in the fields of creativity and jewelry The twin brother Mickey Peretz Perez is a well-known industrial designer and seller. The younger sister Shlomit Peretz Perez works in a managerial position at Bezeq. Question: Tell me about the parents of the painter Raphael PerezAnswer: The painter Raphael Perez's parents are Shimon Perez Peretz and Eliza Alice Ben Yair, they were married in 1950 in Jerusalem, both were born in Morocco and immigrated to Israel in 1949, Shimon Peretz worked in a building in his youth and later as a receptionist at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, Eliza Alice Peretz dealt in child care Kindergarten, working in kindergartens and of course taking care of and raising her seven children

 

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רפי פרץ צייר אמן ישראלי עכשווי מודרני אמנים ישראלים אומנים ישראליים עכשוויים מודרניים האמנים הישראלים העכשוויים המודרניים האומנים הישראליים העכשוויים המודרניים יוצר הומו הומוסקסואל קווירי הומוסקסואליות באמנות הישראלית מגדר אומנות ומגדר אמנות ישראלית עכשווית מודרנית האמנות הישראלית העכשווית המודרנית

 

erotic gay art painting artist raphael perez pintura homossexual da arte de gomoseksual badiiy rasm гомосексуальний художній живопис pittura di arte omosessuale lukisan seni homoseksual listmálun samkynhneigðra péintéireacht ealaíne homaighnéasach pikturë arti homoseksual homoseksuaalne kunstimaal хомосексуална художествена живопис homoseksualno likovno slikarstvo жывапіс гомасэксуальнага мастацтва সমকামী আর্ট পেইন্টিং homoseksuel kunstmaleri homoszexuális művészeti festmény рассоми санъати гомосексуалӣ gomoseksual sungat suratkeşligi homoseksuālas mākslas glezniecība homoseksualaus meno tapyba homoseksuell kunstmaleri homoseksualno likovno slikarstvo

 

queer artworks paintings homoerotic painter lgbt artwork glbt artworks homo erotica man nude male naked men image images picture pictures homosexual homosexualiy artists painters artist body realism realistic famous

 

مثلي الجنس الفن الغريبة الأعمال الفنية معرض معرض رجل عارية لوحة رجال عراة صورة الجسم الإسرائيلي فنان رسام مثلى الفنانين الرسامين لوحات واقعية مثلي الجنس الشهير صورة كبيرة

 

arte homosexual queer obras de arte galería exposición hombre desnudo pintura hombres desnudos retrato cuerpo artista israelí pintor artistas gay pintores pinturas realistas homoerótico famoso imagen grande

 

гомосексуальное искусство квир произведения искусства галерея выставка мужчина ню живопись голые мужчины портрет тело израильский художник художник геи художники художники реалистичные картины гомоэротика знаменитый большое изображение

 

ομοφυλοφιλική τέχνη queer artworks γκαλερί έκθεση άντρας γυμνή ζωγραφική γυμνοί άντρες πορτραίτο ισραήλ καλλιτέχνης ζωγράφος γκέι καλλιτέχνες ζωγράφοι ρεαλιστικοί πίνακες ομοιορωτική διάσημη μεγάλη εικόνα

 

homosexuelle kunst queer kunstwerke galerie ausstellung mann nackt malerei nackte männer porträtkörper israelischer künstler maler schwule künstler maler realistische gemälde homoerotisch berühmtes großes bild

 

homoseksuele kunst queer kunstwerken galerie tentoonstelling man naakt schilderij naakte mannen portret lichaam Israëlische kunstenaar schilder homo kunstenaars schilders realistische schilderijen homo-erotisch beroemd groot beeld

 

art homosexuel queer oeuvres d'art galerie exposition homme peinture nue hommes nus portrait corps artiste israélien peintre artistes gais peintres peintures réalistes homoérotique célèbre grande image

 

homoseksualna sztuka queer dzieła galeria wystawa mężczyzna nago malarstwo nagi mężczyzna portret ciało izraelski artysta malarz homoseksualiści malarze realistyczni obrazy homoerotyk sławny duży obraz

 

Eşcinsel sanat queer sanat eseri galeri sergi adam çıplak boyama çıplak erkekler portre vücut İsrail sanatçı ressam eşcinsel sanatçılar ressamlar gerçekçi resim sergisi homoerotik ünlü büyük resim

 

समलैंगिक कला क्वीर कलाकृतियों गैलरी प्रदर्शनी आदमी नग्न पेंटिंग नग्न पुरुषों चित्र शरीर इजरायल कलाकार चित्रकार समलैंगिक कलाकारों चित्रकारों यथार्थवादी चित्रों समलैंगिक प्रसिद्ध बड़ी छवि

 

homoseksuell konst queer konstverk galleri utställning man nakenmålning nakna män porträtt kropp israelisk konstnär målare gay konstnärer målare realistiska målningar homoerotisk berömd stor bild

all existential inquiry eventually leads to the same place. to the great cosmic joke. this is it.

It's Wednesday. And I'm pretty sure we've all had some bleak thoughts on a Wednesday at some point. I'm not sure however if i've ever suffered an existential crisis on the level that this man is currently having to deal with. Sure, I've had some strange notions from time to time but this guy's desperation at his inability to tell his lovely lady that they aren't really lovers and are, in fact, just stencils is somewhat heartbreaking. The swirling maelstrom of his thoughts is reflected in the somewhat random background. Just how is he going to break it to her? Life can be tough, can't it?

 

It's on A3 paper and is desperately seeking a new home. Any takers at £50?

 

Cheers

 

id-iom