Gestures from Father to Daughter

"The exhibition, the first after the passing of the renowned architect Zvi Hecker in Berlin in 2023, offers a new perspective on the creative force he embodied, as expressed in his dialogue with his daughter on projects he designed for her. In a letter he left, Hecker wrote that looking at his work from the perspective of the relationship between father and daughter could be "a unique reality that might be attractive because of the human touch, seldom felt in such undertakings."
Hecker's daughter, Dr. Ella Zimmerman, a researcher at the Weizmann Institute, spent most of her life living in apartments in iconic buildings designed by her father: Dubiner House (designed with Alfred Neumann and Eldar Sharon, 1963) and the Spiral House (1989) for which he won the Rechter Prize (1999). His last project, Casa di Ella, a private house for Ella and her family in Italy, remained unfinished.
Ella, who carries his legacy, as a witness and "collaborator," as her father referred to her, considers her father an artist, or as he himself would say, "an artist whose medium is architecture."
The exhibition includes sketches, plans, photographs, models and films that were part of their dialogue, things they talked and corresponded about. They are part of the father-daughter relationship centered on his work. Hecker designed Ella's apartments, or works of art, as she refers to them, whereas she saw her role in their collaboration in the precise realization of his vision.
Hecke's many sketches, part of which are on display, reveal a glimpse into his unique work and thought process. These homes can be regarded as labs for Hecker to explore his ideas on dwelling and domesticity—from the building to the apartment and the life it contains. They can also be seen as model apartments of sorts, welcoming students, architects, artists and scholars from Hecker's circle to experience his vision as a comprehensive design from inside and out.
The exhibition does not aim to summarize the vast body of work created by this exceptional—if also controversial—groundbreaking architect. It presents an intimate and personal aspect of his approach to designing and implementing his visions in projects he designed for his daughter within the domestic and family spheres."

text by Sabrina Cegla, architect
Liebling Haus Senior Curator

31.05.1931 - 24.09.2023

read

Exhibition Catalogue

Zvi Hecker: Entwürfe für die Berliner Mitte
Text: Nikolaus Bernau.
Publisher: Books People Places / Peter Schmidt, Berlin
ISBN 978-3-949944-02-4

more

Zvi Hecker: Entwürfe für die Berliner Mitte

The exhibition presents designs developed by architect Zvi Hecker for Berlin's Mitte district. With the help of drawings and models, it provides insight into his urban planning visions and into the architectural discourse conducted in Berlin in the 1990s - a unique phase of urban planning that is currently becoming the subject of historiography.

Zvi Hecker participated in three of the most prestigious architectural and artistic design competitions for the new German capital: Square of the Republic, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and for the design for the Monument of Freedom and Unity in front of the Humboldt Forum. The fourth project in Berlin-Mitte, which has also (so far) remained unrealized at a no less representative location, the Brandenburg Gate, was in a sense self-commissioned.

The idea behind the exhibition at the Mitte Museum is as obvious - all the projects shown are located in the Mitte district - as it is provocative: a review of the built reality based on Zvi Hecker's designs.

The exhibition is accompanied by a booklet with a text by Nikolaus Bernau.
Publisher: Books People Places / Peter Schmidt, Berlin
ISBN 978-3-949944-02-4

Artist's Talk
Zvi Hecker in conversation with Eyal Weizmann

The conversation will be held during the exhibition "Zvi Hecker - Pages Of An Open Book" and hosted by Heimo Lattner.

Exhibition

Zvi Hecker's sketchbooks are the containers in which his "wild anarchic" thinking has been deposited; they provide information about his artistic universe. With the exhibition "Pages Of An Open Book" Hecker allows an intimate insight into this sometimes largely hidden terrain of his work for the first time. He left the selection of the open pages to the curator. It does not follow a chronology or a concentration on specific buildings, but rather their inherent poetry: "Poetry is the most precise expression of our need for precision." (ZH)

more

The Architecture of Zvi Hecker. Italian Projects

Catalogue edited by
Paola Ardizzola

Texts by
Nicola Mattoscio, Paola Ardizzola,
Margherita Guccione, Caterina Palestini

Graphic design
Arte della Stampa Srl - Pescara

Produced by
Fondazione Pescarabruzzo – Gestioni Culturali Srl

An important opportunity to see all of Zvi Hecker's Italian projects in Pescara, Italy, on display at the Maison des Arts by Fondazione Pescarabruzzo. The architecture of Zvi Hecker. The Italian Projects is an exhibition that retraces, in a time span from 1999 to 2022, the design genesis of the various Italian projects through sketches, drawings, and models.
On display are also the iconic projects built from the 1960s onwards in Europe and Israel which, as a subtle fil rouge, guide the visitor through the pages of an "open book". Indeed, the Polish-Jewish architect designed a site-specific for the Maison in the form of "Pages of an open book" so that the exhibition space is itself an example of Hecker's architectural language.
Viewers are invited not only to see the architect's design path but also to personally experience the shape and space it generates.
The project "La casa di Ella" that is being built in Manoppello, in the province of Pescara, is also part of the exhibition. The project narrates the important comparison between the international milieu that Hecker brings with him and the ancient Abruzzo culture which nature, characterized by an often harsh and fascinating territory, he has been able to interpret as an element full of prodromal symbols and values.
Works will be on display from 17 September to 16 October 2022. from Wednesday to Sunday, h. 17 - 20. Vernissage 17 September at 6 pm while the catalogue will be presented on the occasion of the Finissage, which will be held on 15 October at 5 pm. The exhibition, promoted and realised by Fondazione Pescarabruzzo and with the support of the Zvi Hecker Stiftung Berlin, has Paola Ardizzola as curator.

The challenging exception to the built rule

Discussion between Zvi Hecker and Heimo Lattner.
"This conversation is not a retrospective, but a reality check, a review of built reality based on Zvi Hecker's designs."

Read more (German only)

"It is impossible to remain indifferent to the buildings he designed.
He was a provocateur and rebel who put up a series of masterpieces, alongside controversial eccentric structures. At the age of 90, the architect Zvi Hecker sadly overlooks architecture in Israel, and tells why there are almost no doors in his house in Berlin"

read more (Hebrew only)

"Seine Architektur scheut keine Symbolik: Zvi Hecker hat von Kanada über Frankreich bis Israel und Deutschland Spuren hinterlassen. Heute feiert er seinen neunzigsten Geburtstag."

mehr lesen / read more (German only)

"Sein Leben ist ein Spiegelbild des 20. Jahrhunderts in Europa, seine Architektur auch.
Heute wird der Architekt und Künstler Zvi Hecker 90 Jahre alt."

mehr lesen / read more (German only)

Michael Jacobson rediscovers the bandshell in HaTikva Garden, Tel Aviv, design by Zvi Hecker in 1978.
Enjoy reading his article here (Hebrew only)

See also the project page

Zvi Hecker will participate in the group exhibition "Line in the Sand", organized by Bar Am and Galerie Thomas Fischer

more

Exhibition opening:
27th November 2019
at 7.00 pm

at FUGA Budapest Center of Architecture

more

In case you are in Katowice, come and visit the exhibition of Zvi Hecker's drawings, sketches and models realized for projects starting from the 80s until the most recent design for "House Neumeister".
On show at the Galeria Architektury SARP.

more

Apropos GretaThunberg's speech at United Nations...

I wrote in 2004:

A Short History of Mankind
Over the last thousands of years, we humans have changed very little. We are still less than two meters tall, we reproduce as our ancestors have and our diet has not changed considerably. Our psychological build up has hardly changed at all. We believe in gods, we fear the unknown and we search for protection and security. Our psyche is that of a caveman.
Though we ourselves haven't changed, we have changed the world around us. We have produced many new toys "to please the time" as Brodsky calls it. These toys have brought mixed blessings and a lot of maintenance.
More maintenance is urgently needed as the planet earth, impaired by the growing demands of an ever-increasing mankind, shows signs of fatigue. As there is no certainty that anything will actually be done on time, we might as well return to the caves, and this time probably for good.

Zvi Hecker
30th November 2004

A Short History of Architecture
Architecture is a shelter, and it is a product of our skills. Though we as humans change very slowly, we constantly develop new skills and abandon old ones.
To satisfy our ever-growing needs, we have to use ever-new methods. But methods also develop their own needs. The satisfaction of these needs has recently been confused with architecture.

Zvi Hecker
30th November 2004

The exhibition of drawings and sketches by Zvi Hecker for "House Neumeister" is now on show at Villa Winternitz, designed by Adolf Loos in Prague in 1932: another silent dialogue between two family houses, designed in different time and different locations.

The exhibition is curated by Tadeáš Goryczka, Kabinet architektury - Dům umění/ GVUO, Ostrava, Czech Republic,

with the patronage of Daniel Mazur, Mayor of Prague 5,
and Hana Třeštíková.

More

See also: "Zvi Hecker in Villa Tugendhat"

An Interview between Ory Dessau and Zvi Hecker

available on ArchDaily.

"[...] Ory Dessau: It seems that through architectural sketches, you try to come close to the essence of the architectural idea and the symbolism of changing metaphors.
Zvi Hecker: Yes, I agree with this definition, in every new project one is in search of its basic idea, which we do not bring to the project, but hope to discover within it. We embrace the idea only when it is ready to inform us about its nature. We do not know where the idea is hiding, its location does not appear on any map, and therefore cannot be reached by any public transport. [...] we have to build our own means of transport. For me, architectural sketches are such a vehicle [...]"

Read more

Keynote lecture by Zvi Hecker
Sunday, 14 April 2019
7.00 pm

Within the framework of:
The Brutalist Turn
an international conference on concrete architecture
14-16 April 2019

Library of Alfred Neumann (1900-1968)
Georges Teyssot and Samuel Bernier-Lavigne

After the donation of Alfred Neumann's personal library to the Laval University School of Architecture, Professor Goerges Teyssot and Professor Samuel Bernier-Lavigne began the project for the valorization of the legacy. Their initiative led three main results: the realization of furniture, inspired by Neumann's work, to accommodate his books; a catalog including texts by Alfred Neumann, Eva-Marie Neumann, George Teyssot and Samuel Bernier-Lavigne; an exhibition of the rare books from Neumann's collection.

Zvi Hecker in conversation with Prof. Sigurd Larsen
B.I. Talks

The B.I. Talks is a biannual series of public lectures from design and business professionals, organized by Prof. Sigurd Larsen and Berlin International – University of Applied Sciences

Zvi Hecker's drawings and sketches for "House Neumeister" were first shown in Villa Tugendhat in Brno in May 2018. They will be on show in the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław.
The Exhibition is curated by the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław and Kabinet Architektury in Ostrava.

read more

Panel discussion within the framework of the international city-wide festival of architecture
MakeCity 2018 – Berlin Remixing | Stadt neu gemischt

The event is free, please register

Zvi Hecker opens the symposium about Alfred Neumann at Methodical Center of Modern Architecture (Metodické Centrum Moderní Architektury - MCMA).
The event takes place parallel to the opening of the exhibition "Space Packing Architecture: The Life and Work of Alfred Neumann", curated by Rafi Segal, Zvi Hecker, Tadeáš Goryczka and Jaroslav Němec (Kabinet Architektury).

Exhibition of Sketches – Zvi Hecker in Villa Tugendhat

Villa Tugendhat designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1930 exhibits drawings and sketches done by Zvi Hecker in 2017-18 for the "House Neumeister" located in Monte Fumo, Itri, between Naples and Rome.
It is a silent dialogue between two family houses, designed in different time and different locations. The exhibition shows the lengthy process of design of "House Neumeister" in a series of consecutive sketches.

read more

The Koningin Máximakazerne featured on line on BauNetz.
The project brings together all the branches of the Royal Military Police (Koninklijke Marechaussee, KMar) responsible for maintaining security at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport.
The KMar project is a multi-functional complex of living, working, and training facilities for an approximately 1,500 staff stationed at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport. The complex, when seen from the air and from the runways, should provide a bold architectural accent for the main entrance gate to the Netherlands.

"The Koninging Máximakazerne is a military complex evocative of a medieval walled city with contemporary comfort." – Zvi Hecker

Read more

Koningin Máximakazerne,
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, The Netherlands, 2017
view of the main entrance to the complex

Artist's Talk
Zvi Hecker in conversation with Ory Dessau

Installation by Zvi Hecker

Installation and exhibition of architectural drawings realized during the design of the project Koningin Máximakazerne, at Schiphol International Airport Amsterdam.

more

acrylic on canvas, 100 x 70cm
"Zvi Hecker – New Paintings"

Club Mediteraée, Achziv, Israel, 1961

"I am an artist after all. You know, real art and real architecture cannot be totally legal; very often both are in direct conflict with legality."
Zvi Hecker

Archdaily features Zvi Hecker's interview by Vladimir Belogolovsky
more

Museum of Architecture Wrocław was awarded with the Sybilla Prize 2015 in the category Exhibition Concept and Technique for the exhibition

"Zvi Hecker – Pages of the Book"

more

"A good idea is like a baby: it needs patience, care, and nurturing to grow"

Gestalten.tv interviewed Zvi Hecker to learn more about his studied approach to his work.

more

According to its maker:

"Pink Lady is a seductive fruit of divine origin, granted permission to be grown solely in paradise. 
Its true genesis is a well-kept secret. The instillation however reveals it when it peels into a shape of infamous seducer of paradise."

Zvi Hecker's second solo exhibition at Neumeister Bar-Am Gallery, encompassing a single large site-specific installation titled Pink Lady.

more

Zvi Hecker's Housing Dream

Post by George Kafka on uncube blog

more

Zvi Hecker

Monographic issue with essays by Rafi Segal, Florian Heilmeyer, George Kafka, interview with Vladimir Belogolovsky, texts of Zvi Hecker and unreleased pictures.

link to uncube

MBA Kraków 2015
Zvi Hecker was awarded the 3rd prize
category Conceptual Designs
at the International Biennale of Architecture of Krakow 2015
with the project:
Memorial Park of the former Concentration Camp Płaszów

more

Exhibition

The installation consists of two strips, Strip A is tying together the four walls of the gallery while Strip B combines the ceiling and the floor of the room. The two strips intersect on the two short walls of the gallery. Strip A carries drawings and paintings of Zvi Hecker. Strip B exhibits the material chosen by the SCI-Arc students as representing Zvi Hecker work.

The exhibition is an interactive work, a dialogue between the personal work of Zvi Hecker and the material assembled by students of SCI-Arc as representing his architecture.

The two Strips A and B convert the gallery space into an active participant in the exhibition itself.

more

Bauhaus Universität Weimar

Series BauhausPORTFOLIO
Zvi Hecker in conversation with Prof. Ines Weizman
more

The exhibition is organized by the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław

"According to Zvi Hecker, architecture does not begin and end with the building. It remains in a state of continuity, subject to constant metamorphoses. The exhibition devoted to his work presents a vivid picture of this process, and at the same time shows a collection of exceptional projects and buildings created as a result."
Museum of Architecture in Wrocław

more

Zvi Hecker solo booth in collaboration with
Nordenhake Gallery and Neumeister Bar-Am Gallery

Lecture by Zvi Hecker

Zvi Hecker

Installation by Zvi Hecker

"The raw pieces of this wall, fragmented bricks caked with cement, in the pristine white cube of Der Würfel is a stark contrast to what architecture represents."
Neumeister Bar-Am Gallery

more

Lecture on occasion of the ceremony for Michele Silvers Prize

Zvi Hecker, Untitled, 2013, 70 x 100 cm, acryl on paper

The Royal Dutch Military Police Complex, now under advanced construction in Schiphol Amsterdam Airport, was recently named in honour of Queen Máxima of the Netherlands as Koningin Máximakazerne.

Queen Máxima was present at the ceremony, which took place on the 26th November 2013.

Lecture by Zvi Hecker

E.A.T. - Engadin Art Talks
"Ghosts and the Uncanny"

Exhibition of recent paintings of Zvi Hecker

Gespräch und Buchpräsentation in der Architekturgalerie in München mit dem israelischen Architekten Zvi Hecker und Andres Lepik (Architekturmuseum TU München).

»Ich bin ein Künstler mit dem Arbeitsgebiet Architektur«, schreibt Zvi Hecker (*1931 Krakau), der renommierte israelische Architekt mit Wohnsitz in Berlin.

Nichts zeigt dies deutlicher als Sketches: eine Auswahl seiner Architekturzeichnungen, die als Kunstwerke für sich selbst stehen und gleichzeitig als Handbuch für einen Gestaltungsprozess dienen, der in Meisterwerken wie dem Spiral Apartment Complex, der Heinz-Galinski-Schule oder Heckers Entwürfen für ein Mountains Housing Projekt gipfelt - einem wegweisenden Werk, das schon Anfang der 90er Jahre aktuelle architektonische Fragestellungen vorwegnahm.

Within the 1st Wuppertaler Symposium

Zvi Hecker in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist

Exhibition of Zvi Hecker's design proposal for the square between Brandenburg Gate and Tiergarten

"The Israeli architect Zvi Hecker who has been living and working in Berlin since 1991 – known for the
Heinz-Galinski-Grundschule in Berlin – has made a visual statement for the reunification of Germany
with his design for the square between the Brandenburg Gate and Tiergarten. This design makes this
inhospitable location, which at the moment is primarily used for large scale events, accessible to a wide
public from Berliners to visitors from all over the world. With the presentation of his original drawings,
sketches and models the exhibition intends to instigate a constructive debate about the future of this
central square."
Aedes Architecture Forum